Running Away from Dreams
by TrueCharizard
Summary: Three friends travel the Antaro region. One gets hit by the car and poisoned soon after. The other two go looking for the cure involving Lugia, a strange girl and a mysterious member of the region's Elite Four.
1. Chapter 1

This is the begining of a new pokémon fanfiction. It's an OT story with slightly more grown up characters, it's rated R for violence and swearing and some mildly suggested themes. It could probably stand as a PG13 though.

Prologue

The city that once stood was a grand one. Full of skyscrapers, bright lights, noisy streets and busy buildings. Its populace was one that lived prosperously amongst the urban backdrop of consumerism and individualism. This was no longer the case.

Now what stood taller than the buildings were two great lizards, one with a scaley skin the colour of fire, the other's skin being as hard as rock, green and black in its colour. They stood upright on two legs each as they raged at each other, spat fire, called down lighting from the sky, tore each other with their bare claws and unleashed every ounce of fury they had in their bodies. It was as if they were born for this moment. Up until now, everything had just been gearing up for this moment. Their day of reckoning. Fire breathing one, clung a young man, who's skin was scarred from burns of fire and electricity, from falling rubble and pure physical abuse. He was as battered and as bloody as both lizard. He clung not just to his reptile's back, but to his own dear life. The fire and smoke that tore through the city blurred his vision until all seemed to fade to black.

It seemed so stupid at the time how anyone could think that what I was having was anything more than a series of bad dreams. Yet they would happen, time and time again. I'd wake up in that cold sweat that made me feel like I was trapped in an ariados web. I'd wake up feeling like my chest was going to cave in on itself. It hurt like to breathe. The guys would always recall a couple of things they picked up in a school psychology class whenever I brought them up. You know the guff; repressed memories, Freudian psychoanalysis and inner fears. Like I'd ever had memories of two fighting giant lizards tearing up a city. My Mother wouldn't even let me watch Godzilla movies till I was eleven. We all knew though that we were just waffling anyway. Qualified professionals we were not, adept ters; maybe.

Ack.. it didn't matter anyway. After my morning smoke, I'd be fine. It was strange that - I didn't smoke any other time than in the morning, but a single cigarette would just hit the spot when I woke up. You'd think that with the shortness of breath from the dreams, fresh air on its own ought to suffice. But not for me, a few extra cancer cells ought to do the trick. I always kept an emergency packet of Luckies on me, just so I could feel like I was an American GI in a Vietnam movie. Lt Surge or something like that. To be fair though, the flavour, too was good, always calmed me down after one of those dreams. They wouldn't be so bad if they didn't feel so real, like I was actually living them. Perhaps the fact they had happened every night for an entire month didn't help much either. There was always that tiniest of inklings that nagged away at me - "What if this means something?". A shrug of the shoulders and another puff at the cigarette and I'd be grand, back to my usual cocky as hell self.

That morning, the nightmare had woken me particularly early. The fresh dew had the effect of turning the grass a turquoise colour and the sun was still on the rise. Both Si and Chris weren't up at this point in time so for my smoke it would have to be just be myself and Gengro. I tossed his pokéball from my belt down to the ground to release him and let him into the open air. He hovered several feet above the ground, traveling through the air like a free spirit, at his own will. In height, he was around five foot, but it didn't look it due to its levitation. That and its width. If anyone were to look at it from a third of a mile a way, all they'd see is a pointed square of purple gas. Pointed in that it had odd looking ears, gaseous hands it could scratch with and two stumpy legs. Maybe it was its care free personality that made it such a good smoking buddy.

Though as you'd expect, being an ethereal spirit made out of gas, my gengar didn't tend to smoke. You can probably guess, Gengro tended to be a bit lacking in the respiratory system for that business but he'd always keep me company. I loved the ghost to bits, especially on mornings like this. He had a sick sense of humour, always telling dead baby jokes that you knew full well you shouldn't laugh at. I guess it was just the way he told them, that sarky grin that stretched right across his face that said it all. We waked around the campsite for a little bit as I smoked, at that point in time I was only half dressed, still padding around on the balls of my bare feet, probably getting them covered in wurmple poo. Nice. Chris, Si and I had set up the make-shift campsite around a nice freshwater lake, though barely big enough to call it that. It was more like a rather large pond, but we weren't complaining. It was a pretty bit of greenery, a clearing right in the middle of the forest. Quiet and away from anything threatening like hives of beedrills, but with the odd twittering from pidgeys to let us know we weren't all by ourselves. We could refill our canteens full of water and even do a little bit of light fishing. Not enough to disturb the eco system, but enough to keep us fed for the night and morning that we camped there.

I gazed down at myself in the reflection. Only Si was vain enough to have a cosmetic mirror with him, so it wasn't often that I got to check myself out. I Not bad I thought. My brown hair was getting thicker and longer. Not 'hippy' or 'metal fan' long, but probably a bit 'stoner-ish' in its way. My eyes, clear blue for a change. No bloodshot tinges from drinking or smoking as they often would in the evenings. I even had a little bit of stubble. Now that was a turn out for the books. In terms of physique, obviously with the walking most of the days and the training we did with the pokemon, we were gonna keep in trim shape, despite the odd excess you'd expect with us being students. Was always good to have that little extra bit of confidence to know you didn't look that bad. I especially had this tall leanness to me. Naturally a little bigger built than Chris or Si, I had a bit of a big rib cage on me, but traces of the bones always poked through the skin, so in an odd way I almost looked skinny. I was never a born athlete but through time I suppose I toned up to be a "strappin' young lad" as my Grandad would put it.

"Whaddya reckon Gengro? Am I a sexy beast or what?" I said in a jokey fashion, flexing a little to my reflection in the water.

The ghost just chucked. You had to love how diplomatic he could be sometimes.

"Well then, we're just gonna have to wake the other two up, I'm sure we could all do with finding some floozies to chat up when we get into the city," I said as a quip. "Besides, I'm dying to have a sparring match with Si's Blaziken. I guarantee you, he may be a six foot tall blazing chicken of death, but I'm telling you I can take him!" I said cockily.

Gengro just chuckled heartily again. I put my cigarette out and went to wake the other two.


	2. Chapter 2

-1When they woke up, everything seemed to go to some sort of clock work consistency. It wasn't like we were working to a planned and structured routine, but we just knew what had to be done was going to be done. Put out the dying embers of the campfire, fold up sleeping bags and pack our bags ready to head to the big city. None of us liked sleeping in too long in the middle of the wilderness. We'd all learned that as long as we set up early, we could get our head down for a good rest out in the open but when it came to a ridiculous twelve hour snooze of epic proportions, nothing would beat a nice warm bed. And besides, with every ugly looking bird pokemon within a mile radius deciding it would twitter in some highly irritating series of cacophonic squawks and chirrups, the ears wouldn't let the mind rest. That's what Si and Chris would find anyway, being already half awake by the time I'd finished my morning smoke.

When we cleared the grass and surrounding area of our possessions, it was time to get moving. Si refused to let me be humiliated by his Blaziken that morning, despite my previous stressing to Gengro that I could beat it in a physical sparring match, so little held us up. The three of us decided it would be good to give some of our pokemon some fresh air, get them moving along with us side by side. That six foot tall blazing chicken of doom was let out for a good grasp of fresh air. It had a good stride to it, keeping pace with us was easy, but for some reason it chose to hold back. I thought at first it was pure laziness that got this pokemon to keep behind, but I soon realized it was for another reason; its combat instinct ensured that it would protect our rear, just in case some unfortunate swarm of beedrills would decide to gang up on us. Chris let out his Feraligatr too, which chose to plod along at the side of us, rather slowly. It's speed however, almost wasn't by choice. Chris had decided to train his totodile to be slow and bulky, so it could take a beating like almost no other pokemon could and dish out far more punch than one ought to. He tended to look for wild pokemon that would build some muscle memory for his feraligatr to do this; carvanhas and sand shrews would take a frequent battering from the chunky water pokemon just so it knew how to take a beating and supply one just as tough. It wasn't a bad idea of Chris's. Feraligatrs aren't naturally built for their speed so it was natural that he should train the pokemon to play to its strengths. I'd seen that gator hits that shouldn't be legal in the world of pokemon battling. Thunderbolts from the best raichu's out there, punches to the jaw from hitmonchans that would put a snorlax down, even a scyther that thought it was being clever trying to slice it in the eye. All of them made the same mistake. They let 'gatr get close. From there in, it was over.

All of us had done some specialized training with our pokemon. Gengro and I had climbed an awful lot of haunted tower in our day. Back when he was just a gastly, we were confuse raying and night-shading our way to the top of them, zubats, golbats and fellow ghost types were put down like they were out of control houndours at the pound. He had learned to be fast and the power of his ghost and psychic attacks had grown to the point that they were almost lethal. In fact, other than maybe Charizard, he was the fastest pokemon I'd ever seen. But charizard was gone. Despite having raised him from a bad tempered charmander into one of the most focused fire breathing beasts, he disappeared. One morning, I tossed his poke ball expecting him to come out for a fly. He never appeared. It was not like it was I ever treated him badly. Far from it, throughout the years we had grown together like kindred spirits. He had part of me in his soul and likewise, I was a charizard at heart. I guess that's why I managed to date Flannery for a bit. Yeah, I thought you might not believe me when I told you. I dated Lavaridge Town's very own gym leader for a little bit. I think out of all the girls I've been out with, she was the most fun. No pun intended, but she could get awful fiery when you got her on her own. Eventually though, our time together had to come to an end. She came to see me compete in the Hoenn League and from there, we kinda knew that I had to go my way and she'd go hers. A shame I guess, but that's how things go, here Chris, Simon and I were in the middle of the Antaro region. Kind of like charizard. For whatever reason he left, I can't resent him. Sure, I did for a bit, but my anger was derived more from sense of loss, missing him and worrying about him. Really though, he deserves to be free. Do his own thing if that's what it was. He was big and strong enough to look after him self anyway and well, it's not like he could leave a note to say he had to go.

The walk through the forest felt like a pretty long one once we stumbled onto the main path. That was the thing about the Thorn blossom forest. Few people walked that deep into it. On the outside it was something people could walk through, have a picnic and then return back to the city without putting themselves at any danger. Go deeper in and the forest became a marshy jungle, filled with the big, bad and ugly pokemon that a lot of people feared. Because of this, whoever made the path had decided that the main path wasn't going to extend into the forest's furthest reaches, perhaps as a warning to keep people and trainers out for their own safety. When it came to it, Si, Chris and I weren't worried about the danger at all. Sure, we had fear, but fear is what keeps you alive. Gives you that adrenaline rush to treat nature with respect. In the five days or so that we had spent in the marshy jungles, we had grown a lot. In character and in physical strength. Both our pokemon and ourselves.

When we finally came onto the main path, we were greeted with the very sights they had made the path for. Full of trees that grew the most colourful of flowers, healthy hills of green grass that seemed to roll into eternity. Si turned his head to gaze at pretty purples, white lilacs, violets and blues that blossomed in the trees. Pidgeys and starlys twittered sweetly and it was as if Blaziken and Feraligatr could finally let their guard down.

"Makes walking through that rank smelling jungle all the more worthwhile," Si mused as we walked with a boyish smile that lit up his face.

"So true man," Chris said in agreement on the other side of me.

I chuckled heartily and straightened out the straps on the backpack around my shoulders.

"And you two wanted to take the bus around the forest. Pussies," I said teasingly.

"Yeah, you told us so," Chris said in a 'yeah yeah' kind of tone. "Whaddya want dickhead, a cookie?" he asked in a sarky way.

"That'd be nice, you baking now?" I replied in question.

The three of just laughed and looked up. The skyscrapers of New Sky City loomed over the trees, the sound of the highway ringing in our ears around us. We were almost there. We had to walk on the road to get from the forest to the city. Most people who went up to the forest for a picnic went up by car and at half seven in the morning, few people are going to fancy lunch. There were a few joggers around, but no-one we reckoned we could scrounge a lift off. So it was that we were walking down this long road, just the three of us. We decided it'd be best to recall our pokemon in the thoughts that we could try and avoid bringing any attention to us from trainers that just had to have a battle with one of us. It was silly really because there was no-one around. Not even any houses built along the road. It was just like walking on the very outside of the forest, tall trees and the pokemon that lived in them to our left, and on our right, the calm blue sea. The city was built on an island that had only a small stretch of ocean cutting it off from the routes leading away from it. A strong sturdy red bridge arched to connect between the two, which we could see from our on the road. The city was teeming with life, cars, lorries and all sorts of motorized transport zoomed over the bridge in both directions. The sea too had plenty of ferries leaving and going towards the large harbour on the island. Not to mention the pellipers that flew above on the bright blue sky and the water pokemon that came up for air every so often near the city.

As we walked though, we were gifted with the benefit of sweet bird song and the relaxed chat of what we were gonna do once we got to the city.

"Hrm.. What you thinking for breakfast guys?" I asked the other two, looking over to Si for a second, then Chris.

"We've already had breakfast though," Chris pointed out in a half matter-of-fact way.

"That was a tin of baked beans cooked over a small fire, I mean breakfast breakfast," I re-asserted with a jokey smirk.

"Awww mate.. It would be so good to munch on a big stack of warm pancakes dripping with syrup and a tiny dollop of whipped cream.." Simon detailed for us, as if a big spot of drool was going to drip from his mouth.

"That's so the stoner in you talking, did you have a cheeky spliff before we left the camp or something and now you have the munchies?" I asked Si, still teasing.

"You're a far bigger stoner than I. You came down to my dorm in university where I was training as a med student and started passing a fatty bombatty around like it was nothing," Si replied, in merrily defensive tone.

"Yeah, but how good was it? You so missed having a smoking buddy," I replied as we continued to walk.

"True. Twas very nicely rolled," Si added with a chuckle.

Chris just tutted and smiled. "You two have weed on the brain. Can you imagine any of our pokemon stoned?" he asked as a humorous thought.

I shook my head. "Gengro is just a natural stoner anyway. Scizor is a bit too warlike to be chilled out too. You have to respect the warrior in him. Besides that, his skin is steel. You can't even poison him, never mind get him to smoke," I decided. "Although.. I'd love to catch a Shiftry. Have you seen their hands? Their quite clearly giant cannabis leaves," I joked.

"You are not gonna catch a Shiftry just so you can smoke it," Si said with a boyish snigger.

"Aw can you imagine that," Chris interrupted with a smile on his face. "Go Shiftry! Use your joint rolling attack!"

"Stop giving me ideas man," I joked. We all laughed.

As I said that we were nearing the road's end, where it led onto the city highway. We knew full well that it was against the law walking along it, but we reckoned as long as we stuck to the side and got off it as soon as we could, we'd be fine. It couldn't be that risky and besides, it was about the only way into the city from where we were apart from a ridiculously long walk that didn't seem worth double backing on ourselves. Even with the cars beeping at us as we walked and the thick accents that were yelling "You're gonna get yourselves killed!" and other abuse at us, we knew that it'd be fine. We don't know why they bothered, it's not like we were in their way or in danger of causing a major traffic jam. Sure if there were any highway cops, they might fine us for "jaywalking" or some other silly offence, but we were happy enough to take our chances. Or that's what we thought.

As we were walking, we saw a sight we most certainly did not expect on a highway. I don't think that anyone would expect there to be a pokemon roaming on the road of the highway. But there it was, in full view of us, dodging cars wherever it could and sliding under them even more so, a giant purple puddle of a being. A muk. Really, it shouldn't have made a difference. But this was Chris. He couldn't let the damn thing be.

"Guys.. That Muk.. It looks injured, we need to help it!" Chris declared decisively. "And well.. I've always wanted to catch one.."

He was right, there was an awkward limp in the way the thing just slimed its way over the road.

"Man.. Just leave it, it'll find a way of looking after itself and we'll probably be putting it in more danger if we go after it," I replied. I didn't know about the danger thing for the Muk's sake, I think I was more or less thinking of hours. I didn't fancy dodging cars on the middle of the highway. Being two metres to the side was bad enough.

But it was too late. Chris had already reached into the pouch on the side of his backpack and grabbed a great ball. He'd already thrown it too by the time I'd finished blathering.

As the blue coloured ball arched through the air, it sailed over a car or two before it hit the ground and sprung open, sucking the purple coloured pokémon into it, before sealing shut again. It rattled and rolled a few times, a red light on the center of the ball shone as it did. Once. Twice. On the third time, the light died down and the ball stopped its rattle. He'd caught it.

"Yes! That was so easy it was meant to be!" Chris exclaimed in a merry tone. "Aw man, did you see that. I'd be a champion at the pal park, I'm telling you!"

"Dude, how are you going to go and get it?" Si asked looking over the road, to where the ball with the captured Muk lay. It seemed to be almost moving to the other side of the road as well, across two lanes as the series of cars and trucks gusted it over.

"Here, I'll grab Gengro out, worst case scenario is that a few drivers get freaked out by driving through a ghost. Actually.. That's a terrible idea, how the hell are we going to go get it?" I quizzed in a be puzzled tone.

"I can nip across and get it, you know how fast I can run," Chris decided. Before I managed to hold him back, he'd already started sprinting. There was a flurry of hoots and horns from cars that he managed to dodge in the few seconds it took for him to make that gap of road, but it wasn't the sound that did the damage. As he went to sweep the poké ball off the highway, he stumbled then caught himself again. Maybe if he'd just fallen over properly, he could have landed on the fender bender in the middle of the road, had a bruise or two, a scratch and nothing more. But he didn't. Catching himself cost him that second where the driver couldn't slow down enough, couldn't brake hard enough. There was a screech of tyres and a jerk. I think I looked away when I saw the car coming towards him. I just remember him lying there in that second afterwards, twitching helplessly on the ground.


	3. Chapter 3

-1I can only thank the Gods his mother wasn't around at the time to see exactly what shape he was in. I could thank them for the fact that the hot girl he picked up the night before we left Rosebud Town wasn't there either. To be honest, I couldn't have cared less how some cute country bumpkin would have reacted seeing my best friend lie in the middle of a highway at the time. I should have been worrying more about how I was going to react. On a completely instinctual basis, I sprinted across the road straight after Chris. I guess I'm lucky I didn't end up on the ground beside him but yet again I couldn't have cared less at the time. As you can expect, I was entirely focused on making sure that Chris was a) still alive and b) not going to die. When I got near him, I stood just before his shoulders before making my next move. This is the bit I'm proud of. I'm totally surprised I had the ingenuity to even think of stopping traffic. At least when I was in that frame of mind anyway. I grabbed two of my poke balls from my belt and tossed them to the road, letting both Scizor and Gengro out of their spherical shaped places of rest.

"Scizor!" declared the steel armoured bug as if to say "At your command." The bug always had that sort of way with me. Made me proud to know I had trained it to the point it's loyalty was unshakable. At that point in time, it was almost comforting to know that he was such an impressive sight, its red metallic wings clicking in a flurry of flaps to cool itself down from its emergence from the poke ball. It stretched its arms and found its centre of gravity at almost the same time much like a kung-fu expert might.

Gengro as always was cool tempered, and jolly spirited. If such a thing exists as a cynical optimist, that's what he was. He knew instinctively what to do once he surveyed the scene.

"Both of you, I need you to hold up traffic in this lane. Just stand there and look like you're a brick wall and it'll be grand," I said in a strong authoritative tone. I had to put that voice on. Either way, every word I pronounced felt like I was scraping sandpaper against the back of my throat. I don't want to sound like I'm some big soft girl, but it was as if I was seconds of crying. I just had to swallow that big ugly lump that kept coming up, if not for my sake, then for mine.

They did as they asked, not having to be told twice. Gengro probably cared as much for Chris as I did and Scizor. Well, he probably respected him as a trainer. Standing along side each other like two parts of a fortified wall. Scizor looked more like a robot than any sort of insect in its way. He stood slightly taller than the average member of its kind and to me, he was a lot tougher.

I didn't stand there for a second longer, in fact in all my life I don't think I've ever fallen to my knees faster than I did there. I brought my right hand down and extended both my index and my middle finger to his throat, finding that very line where neck leads into jaw, looking for his pulse. I felt the gust of wind of every passing car as they zoomed past me in the other lanes as I searched. Those few seconds felt like hours as the tips of my fingers went looking. But in those hours, I found his pulse. It was faint, but it was there. Not that I could take much comfort from it. True, he hadn't been killed instantly but he was unconscious and lying on a hard ground in a puddle of his own blood. Blood that stained his clothes, stuck to him in a deep crimson. I just hoped that it looked like there was more blood spilt than there actually was and that his shirt would somehow stop the flow. I didn't know what sort of trauma his internal organs might be suffering either and to be honest, at the speed he was hit, there was no telling how long he was going to last.

I looked over to Si. He was standing on the other side of the road, standing frozen rigid. Then it occurred to me. Chris wasn't breathing. I brought my ear down to his nose and mouth and put a hand on his chest, hoping that I'd feel something - an exhale, a rising chest; something.

"What the hell?" I asked in a weak whimper. "WHAT THE HELL DO WE DO?" I called out across the road, looking back at Simon. I just looked over Chris. I would have loved to say he looked peaceful, but that would have been a complete lie. Surprisingly enough road accidents don't tend to put a smile on one's face. By that point Si had made it across the road, jittery as he was, he might just have an answer.

"Is he breathing?" Si asked in a dry tone. I could hear the same resonance in his voice that I had in mine. His throat was raw, that easy going smile I was used to seeing replaced by something much more sombre.

I just shook my head in response and attempted to clear my throat once more.

"Well Med student boy, here's your chance to shine," I said as if trying to make a very weary attempt at humour. It wasn't funny.

At this point, I think the adrenaline kicked into Si as well. He'd shaken his fear and had begun acting on his training. He'd only started this journey as a trainer on a year out from studying medicine. It was his R+R so he could settle down into studying to become a doctor.

I just watched him work his art. He squeezed Chris's nose shut between finger and thumb, then put his mouth to Chris's, parting his lips to breath air into Chris's own mouth.

"Should I ring an ambulance?" I asked Si softly. I assumed the answer would be yes, but I wanted to be sure.

Si paused in between breaths and shook his head.

"There's no point," he started. "I can get him breathing again, I'm sure of it but we're in the middle of a motorway. They try and get the ambulance to the scene of the accident in under nine minutes when its within city limits. He'll be gone by the time they've got him back in the hospital," he explained grimly. I thought that was it, but it hadn't sunk in yet. Si wasn't finished though. "We need something faster."

My brain went off in a hundred different tangents at the same time, searching for a way of getting to the hospital.

"Your Starraptor.. You've trained it well Si, you reckon it can carry Chris?" I asked him in a hopeful tone.

Si shook his head. He seemed so quiet as well. Sometimes you just couldn't get him to shut up.

"Normally, yeah but he injured his wing back in the forest. Truth be told, unless you know what you're doing, you aren't supposed to move people who have been hit by cars," he said softly.

"So that's it?" I questioned, almost angrily. "We just give up?" I growled in question, almost spitting.

More and more cars continued to whiz past us, particularly so due to our make shift "wall" giving us some cover but diverting cars to the lanes beside us.

"I don't know if we have a choice," Si said gravely. I could tell though, neither one of us wanted to throw in the towel. This was only round one and there was a lot more fight in us left.

I looked up for a second. We were only a lane off the river. The thought occurred to me that if we had a way of lowering Chris's broken onto a water pokémon maybe we could have it swim to the shore. That was one way of getting him past the traffic. The problem there lay of how it could be done without putting Chris's body into an significant stress and without having a water pokémon big enough to carry him. I had caught a marshtomp in the swamp, but it was not even close to being big enough or strong enough to taking Chris's weight without soaking him.

Then Si turned his head and looked straight at something that I only just caught in the corner of my eye. Whoever had hit Chris was only a few meters away, their motor still running but the car entirely stationary. The driver door opened with a click and out staggered a girl in a state far worse than either Si or I. She looked like she didn't even have the strength to close the door behind her, in fact it was left only three quarters closed. She turned to us and walked very slowly towards us, her face red with tears.

I wanted to be angry towards her, to place all the blame on her but I couldn't. For a start, she hadn't done anything wrong but more importantly, there was something to her character. She was around the same age as us, good looking too. She stood around medium height and had a lithe petite ness to her. Her face was heart shaped with, if were it not for her tears, one of the cutest pairs of eyes I've seen. They say that eyes are like windows to the soul and if it's that's the case, I could see a lot of good in her. There was an air of naivety that they seemed to reflect, an innocence and a desire what was right. In addition, she had this pretty medium length brown hair that was slightly tinted with auburn streaks. Chris would love those.

"I-I I'm sorry," she stammered, her voice effeminate, but struggling to sound the words off. "I didn't see him.. I didn't expect him.." she trailed off, her hands coming around her pink lips like praying hands, not knowing what to say.

I turned back to Simon.

"This is it. This is his chance," I said. I couldn't think of any other way of doing it. If Chris was going to survive, we had to act now.

Si just nodded. "This is it."

"Scizor, use x-scissor on that fender bender, now!" I commanded.

There was a whirr of fluttering steel as the iron headed bug sped across the road in a flash, opened its pincher like claws and severed the metal fence with the most hideous crunch. It was like listening to a car being cubed. Though a large chunk of metal was still hanging off of it, there was a gap in the fender large enough that we could plough through without losing much speed.

I turned back to the girl in tears.

"Lady, I don't know how to tell you this, but we're borrowing your car," I declared without any hope of backing down. I turned back to Si. "You think we can move him?"

"Dude, we don't have -any- choice."

I picked myself up and hurried to the car, opening the rear passenger door. It was quite a nice car, a dark blue saloon car that was reasonably new. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been a graduation present for its driver.

"I-I can help you," the girl stuttered. "I don't if this would help, but I was trained in basic first aid," she declared. I wasn't sure of how much help she could really provide in the state she was, but this was an 'all hands on deck' scenario. I had to hope for the best.

"That's great. Simons a med student, we need to get Chris into the back seat."

The three of us gathered around Chris and did what needed to be done. Simon explained briefly just how it should be done. Time was of the essence. We lifted him on three and moved quickly, so that every part of body could be supported. Then we walked along with him in our arms until he could be rested comfortably in the back seat, his body rested over Simon's lap, the girl holding his head in her lap. He had to be angled slightly for him to fit. It wasn't a comfortable fit by any means, but it was a fit.

I closed the rear passenger door hastily, then hurried to scoop up my two poke balls and pointed them at Gengro and Scizor.

"Return!" I commanded. A red beam of light shot out from each of the two balls and recalled both of my pokemon to their spheres of habitude. I placed them back in my belt and rushed round to the driver door. I may as well have morphed into Gengro and walked straight through it without opening it. At that point, I had forced myself to react. There should have been no thinking to done. When I found myself behind the wheel, there wasn't any difference in my thought process.

"Dude, you haven't even driven a car in your life," Si exclaimed.

"At this point in time, I don't think it even matters."

The keys were already in the ignition waiting to be turned. I gripped them and twisted, the engine starting with a healthy vroom to it. In my head every thing on the dashboard said "GO"

I had a slow start to leave the lane, I had to dodge between cars before I had the car surge through the weakness in the fender by the nose before forcing the vehicle to accelerate. I changed gears just as the car slid into the side of the road aimed at the city. That's when I really floored it.

It wouldn't hit me till much later how many traffic violations I was going to break, or

how many I had already broken. Yet when it came to the life of friends, the law was always going to come second.

I went through one gear change after another, over taking car after car. I'd only ever driven manual around a car park when my dad was trying to teach me the basics of driving a few years before. I don't think he'd believe me if I were to tell him that I was driving a manual, clutching the stick shift like it was second nature. Which is strange. I've never been a natural for anything before in my life and yet here I was behind the wheel of a car blitzing through traffic like a bolt of lightning. Those computer games I played as a kid seemed to be paying off. That being said, I don't think I could ever drive like that again.

The best part though was that I was going to have to write a big letter of appreciation to the guy who decided to put a big directional arrow to the hospital on every road sign within three miles of the city. That or the fact the traffic cops didn't seem to be on duty today. If my life was a sitcom, I'd have cracked a joke about it being free doughnut day.

I turned my head round just as I hit a side road to the hospital.

"How's he doing?" I asked, looking first to Si, then to the girl.

"He's.." the girl started, sniffing sharply. "He's beautiful," she said stroking his face with her hand.

Something about that picked up our spirits. It was so typical of Chris. He could be near dead and girls would still think he's one of the best looking guys they'd ever seen.

"I think he'd prefer the term handsome, but we'll let him know," I said with a chuckle, before turning my head to see the road again.

I could see Si just allow the smallest smile on his lips in the rear view mirror, with a renewed glint of hope in his eyes. It's what I wanted to see.

When we arrived at the hospital, I couldn't believe it. Chris was still breathing even as we pulled up to the Emergency Room. To a certain extent, his bleeding seemed to have calmed down too. That's not to say that the back seat of the car wasn't still caked red though. He was breathing and his heart was beating and to the three of us, that's all that counted.

We called for help as soon as we could. They brought the cavalry. They put him on a stretcher and gathered round to rush him in, paramedics, surgeons, rushing him through the doors, down corridors until he could be treated. The three of us ran with them, they asked us who he was, his age, his allergies. We answered as best as we could. They took him into the operating theatre and we could go no further. It was time to play the waiting game.


	4. Chapter 4

-1Does anyone like hospitals? I don't know, the staff aren't always as gloomy as you'd expect. Doctors and nurses, tend to keep a high spirit whenever they can. Maybe they just get used to people getting sick or dying. I'm sure they hate whenever a patient dies, but surely they can't feel the pain as much as anybody who actually knew them. For their sake, I hope they don't.

Si, the girl and I had been sitting in those uncomfortable hard plastic chairs. The ones that had that awkward curved back to them that you knew was in part to cheap design and in part to the fact that people had leant onto the back legs of them, rocked back and forth whenever they were irritated with waiting for their eight year olds to be told they had chickenpox. I had to get up and pace around the room every so often, padding on the ball of each foot like a bored lux a ray. I couldn't sit down without fidgeting anxiously. By that point, I was in two minds. Part of me did nothing but worry. The other part believed we had made it on time, that Chris was going to be okay and that we'd be laughing about it as soon as the doctors did their job.

The place smelt funny, but I think that's what you ought to expect from hospitals. You know that smell - it's like the one they have in retirement homes. Where the cheap linoleum is mopped several times a day in an industrial cleaning fluid but still some how smells of old people suffering from arthritis and the flu.

As if that's not bad enough, they always try and cover it up with economy savers air freshener or popourri as well. You'd have thought that they'd assaulted enough of your senses with the dingy ceiling tiles they always have and the dim energy saver lights that never provided enough light for you to fill in a Su Doku grid without straining your eyes. The hospital was quite quiet too. By the time we had got sitting down it was only around ten a.m. and I suppose that's not at all that busy of a time for a hospital. You had a few people sitting in seats around us, waiting for their turn to see the doctor. Some tried to start rather forced sounding conversations with us. The old woman who was content to tell us about how she had worked and paid taxes all her life and how the health care system wasn't like it was back in her day. The middle aged labourer who had hammered a nail into his thumb and needed a tetanus. I think they kind of worked out in the end that we didn't want to know and consequently left us alone.

Between the three of us, we kind of kept ourselves vaguely entertained. We chatted from time to time but there was a lot of awkward silences. I suppose whilst I was bored but never-the-less confident that Chris was going to be fine, Si and the girl were on edge. When you travel around as trainers, you tend to experience a lot together. I knew that Chris was going to take a time to heal up but I think the doubt in my mind of whether he was going to pull through had all but disappeared completely. He might have been hit by a car travelling at high speed but if anyone could survive such an injury, it would be Chris. I think Si wanted to have the same faith in him, but being a med student he wanted to have some of rational sense to what had happened. As for the girl, she was pretty shook up for the fact she had hit Chris in the first place. I guess it's natural that she would worry about his well being.

We found out her name was Elisé. She was studying to be an architect and was currently on her Summer internship. We told her that she'd done enough, that it could have been anyone that ran Chris over and the fact she had let us drive him to hospital had probably saved his life. She said she couldn't go without knowing if he was okay. Maybe it was some sort of guilt that compelled her to stay. I told her that the police probably wouldn't be involved, at least there'd be no charges against her. She had driven as anyone would have going about their business on a highway. In a way though it was comforting to know that there were still good people in the world. Those who'd go out of their way to make matters right. She joked about how she was going to have to explain to her Dad the Chris-shaped bump in her bonnet, the broken headlights too. She'd promised her Dad when he let her drive his car that she wouldn't let anyone else drive too. She seemed quite amiable too. The type of girl who had vision, worked hard on things she cared about but wasn't going to be tediously career minded. By that I mean she wanted to be a great architect, but it was the work, not the money that mattered to her. She sounded like she could party pretty hard too when the feeling struck her. I could imagine she'd be the type of girl I'd end up making out with at a party when we both had a few beers in us. That or Chris would end up going out with her for a few dates and see where it went. I was sure that could have been arranged whenever he came to.

I ended up having a cigarette during that waiting period. I excused myself to do so and I ventured outside the hospital and walked to the sea front. It wasn't that far to the docks from where the hospital was built. The hospital building overlooked the ocean - a cold black-painted steel railing was all that separated the pavement from a metre long rocky slope that followed into the water and prevented any drunk from falling in. It's what I'd leant into whenever I was having my cigarette. The wind had picked since we had arrived at the hospital and the sky had turned a foggy grey. The Antaro region was quite famous for having rather unpredictable weather. You'd have days where you'd be wearing your raincoat, the next you'd be wishing you were wearing shorts. I was expecting the rain to start splashing down on me as I smoked but other than the occasional wave splashing spray from the sea up at me, I was left pretty dry. Looking out over the sea, I got to witness some of the wonders of life. Just watching wingulls hover over the surface as they fished gave me something to focus on when I smoked. The small white birds kept in solitary pairs as they fished, their orange beaks acted more as teaspoons used to stir coffee than the tips of spear like beaks larger birds might use to peck prey. One of the famous city attractions was the famous Pelipper walkway where the larger evolved forms of wingull would perch on before they fished. I had never taken the walk down it but I was always kind of amazed by the big bills pelippers had that made them almost like living boats with wings. I'd seen kids ride their backs like slow moving jet skis when I visited the beach back on family holidays in Vermillion. Pokémon always gave me something to focus on when I smoked, which in a way diverted away from the fact I knew I shouldn't have been smoking. I had thought of myself as a morning smoker but I guess I just needed a nicotine rush to pass the time. It kind of made all that anxious waiting some what more tangible. I walked back into the waiting room after my smoke, just as the doctor was going to deliver the update to Si and Elisé.

I think when I saw his face was when my heart just sank. He stood around six foot and was probably in his mid-40s. He had tidy black hair, with a few grey patches on either side of his head and wore thin plastic framed spectacles on his eyes. His face was one of experience, only weathered a little over time. He seemed like the type of wife and two kids kind of guy - he wore a white lab coat over a half buttoned suit white shirt and equally smart black trousers. It was as if he was professional, but friendly; I could even imagine some easy going banter with him. Just at that point in time it wasn't going to happen. On his face was a grave expression. I walked slowly back up to join the other two as he delivered the news. I didn't want to hear the worst but I knew I'd need to be sitting down to hear it.

"I'm afraid I don't have a lot of good news," he said with a soft sigh.

I looked back to Si and Elisé. Elisé covered her mouth as if trying to prevent herself from screaming. Si's cheek twitched as if he had just swallowed down the need to cry again.

"He's.. he's dead then?" I asked in a less than cheerful tone. I really didn't want to hear yes and I didn't want to have asked the question.

The doc just shook his head.

"He's alive at this point in time but for how long I can't be sure," he began. "Your friend has suffered traumatic injuries, his ribs are broken and his internal organs have had severe damage to them. We've had to operate on him to deal with the damage and prevent internal bleeding."

I just stared into space in silence as he continued with the bad news. I was trying not to imagine life without Chris but being told of the extent of his injuries chilled me to the bone.

"I don't want to sugar coat this in anyway because I know you'd see right through it. His chances aren't good. In all honesty, we are doing the best we can for him. If he's to pull through, we're going to have to operate on him again. Even then, I can't promise you anything. He's on life support at the minute. The next twenty four hours are going to be crucial," he explained in a calm but serious tone. I didn't like what he was saying, but I could appreciate his honesty. "Does anyone have any questions?" he asked sternly

I looked over to Si and Elisé again. I couldn't think of anything to say. My sense of hope was completely sucked out of me in one foul swoop. I felt helpless. After we made that trip to hospital, I was so sure he was going to make it. We had done the impossible by getting him to hospital on time. I thought after that it would be fine. I guess I just failed to realize the seriousness of the situation and had been kidding myself the entire time.

Si looked back over to me and for a moment we shared a look of sadness. Elisé couldn't bring herself to look at either of us, her vision had dropped to the floor. I just rubbed her back to let her know that we were there. I wanted to be more of a comfort, let her know that it wasn't her fault but I think it was Si and I who were probably hurting more. Neither of us would want to admit it either.

"I should probably ring his mother," Si decided.

I nodded in agreement.

"That would probably be a good idea," the doctor said. "I gather the three of you were from Kanto?" he asked with a nod to Si and I, the third person referring to Chris.

I nodded again, having little to say.

"Well you're welcome to sleep in the waiting room here if you have no where to stay. There is a hostel not too far down the road but I'm assuming you'd want to be as close to your friend as possible.." he trailed off, knowing that Si and I were in other places at that time.

"I'm going for another smoke," I said, my voice straining as I spoke.

I must have gone through half a packet my packet of cigarettes, lighting the next one with the dying embers of the previous one. I let out Gengro to join me, I figured he might like an update. The ghost emerged from his poké ball with that slick grin he always did, only for it to be turned upside down. The purple shadow pokémon even hovered down to the ground when I delivered the news, something I rarely see him do. He was just under five foot in height, most of that was his body. His large triangular ears protruded from his body and stuck out in opposing directions, his arms and legs were plump and stumpy, ending in jagged claws of gas. Some people would be terrified to even get near to a gengar and in a way, I didn't blame them. Whilst Gengro was in some ways tame, he wasn't a being you trifled with lightly. Other specimens of his species often had a sinister personality. Gengro though was as easy going as I was. Except for the fact he absorb the very life out of a man. That I couldn't do.

The two of us sat and talked over things. Gengro could communicate telepathically. A gift that he only really let me experience. Times like this, he knew his gift would go to good use.

We reminisced over Chris. Chris, was your classic case of being life's golden boy. With a bit of determination, he coulda been a top athlete. Whether it was ping pong, or rugby, even boxing he coulda been a contender. Only things I could ever do better than Chris were either in the school subjects that he didn't take an interest in, or in tests of gruff manliness. But then, I don't recall there being an Olympic competition for being able to drink pints of beer and then take more punches than the other guy. Of course other than play fights Chris and I never scrapped. I might have been an inch or two taller and a bit bigger built but trying to wrestle the leanest and naturally strongest guy you're ever like to meet is a feat onto itself.

Thing with Chris was that only if someone challenged him, he didn't feel he needed to prove himself. When he was asked to join the rugby team at school by the coach, he turned it down. Something that I woulda given my right arm for. You see, Chris did things because he wanted to do them, he didn't think too hard on things. What you saw with Chris, you got. He took life as it came and you took Chris in the same way. I don't think I ever met anyone who didn't like him. So never mind the fact he could run a hundred metres in eleven seconds, he may have been athletic, but it wasn't who he was. What mattered was being around his friends - not just Si and I, but just as importantly his pokémon. As trainers, Chris and I could go toe to toe, each time trying to do something that neither one of us would expect, gaining a bit of experience along the way. His feraligatr I don't think I need to mention any more. It was a chunky bipedal amphibious reptile that stood close to eight feet. You could see the blue skinned beast from miles away. When it came to battling against it, you didn't dare get close. As for his marowak, it too was extremely well trained. Standing less than five foot in height, it was no less skilled. The brown coloured skull wearing dog man wore its skull helmet and armour like a knight. Never in my life have I seen a pokemon that could wield a piece of bone as efficiently as a samurai wielding a sword. One thing you could really appreciated about Chris was his ability with younger pokémon too. He had a young vulpix, maybe only a month or two out of its egg that was almost as fast as a full grown Ninetails. Chris harnessed its speed and ability to weave flame efficiently to defeat the last gym leader we had to battle. He dispatched a skarmory with ease. That's just the pokémon Chris kept on him. At the age of twelve, Chris's family moved from Johto to Kanto, he went on a short lived pokémon training adventure having been given a totodile on Professor Elm's young trainers scheme before he moved though. When he got over to Kanto he decided it'd be best to go back to school. That's where Si and I met him.

Si and I had been in different social circles before we both met Chris and I guess he kind of just acted like the friendship glue that brought us together. We stayed friends the whole way through school and the three of us in our own rights were the best trainers in the school, hands down. It was only after school that we decided to go serious. In fact, we all did a year of university. I was thinking of being a historian, Si a doctor and Chris.. Well, he just picked something and had a go. In the end we realized that we needed time to gather ourselves, go on an adventure, get some self discovery or something. We toured Hoenn and did remarkably well, then had a brief stint of the coliseum scene in Oore. But now, we were in Antaro, 5 badges in with only two and a half months before the annual league was about to begin. We were trying to pick up the badges as quickly as we could without skimping on the training.

That being said, our time constraints didn't bother any of us, least of not Si. I think that's what made him such a good trainer, he took his time with things and only got frustrated when he had made a wrong doing. Truth be told, that wasn't very often. It was funny. In some ways, he was the most mature out of all of us and in others, he was just this little kid, that woke up every morning with the same brightness to his eyes you might see a six year old have. I thank this day that Chris brought the three of us together, otherwise I might not have ever come to be as good friends as I was with Si. Whilst being one of the top trainer earned me a lot of respect in school, I found it hard to make friends. I was always trying to prove myself by doing outrageous stunts and making an ass out of myself for attention or to make people laugh. In reality, I was just this kid that wanted to daydream and be accepted. I learned from Si that I didn't need to do that to make friends and that when you try to be everyone's friend you can end up their enemy. He was the type of guy that accepted his place in life, played happily at his pursuits and never got too stressed out. Just like him, Si's pokemon ended up with the same mind set that he had. Laid back and cool. Maybe the only flaw with him was that he had a tendency to be slightly vain. Chris was a good looking guy - even witnessing Elisé stroke his head in the car, you could tell she thought so. As for me, I got told a fair bit that I was handsome in my own way. So in a way, it was only Si who missed out in the looks front. He didn't stand out as being naturally handsome. I wouldn't call him ugly by any means, but he was tall and skinny, his face freckled and in some ways a little effeminate. So Si would tend to make a big effort, as soon as we arrived to a new town, he'd find somewhere to straighten his hair and go to the store to find the best clothes he could get with the money he'd won from battles. Ack, I didn't begrudge him for it really. I suppose when you don't worry about how good you look when you wake up in the morning like I do, you might worry a bit more about personal appearance. Anyway, his style also kind of got him attention when it came to girls. It kind of complimented his easy going personality. It meant that he got to impress them with his smarts, he had a lot of those. If Chris were the athlete with some brains, Si was the scientist with some athleticism. Maybe not quite as good at sports as Chris, Si still held his own whenever he put the training in. It was his intelligence that got him places though. He wouldn't have been at genius level of intellect but he had a great capacity to learn fact after fact and understand the implications behind them. When he could be bothered studying hard in university, he was top of the class. That being said, times where he could be bothered studying hard were few and far between.

The three of us spent a bit too much time doing fun things during our first year of university. Partying, socialising but perhaps more than anything - battling. I always loved battling. Training a pokémon that you grow and learn with to become best friends and comrades in arms gave me more joy than anything else. I don't know why we didn't go on the journey earlier. I think we just got a little rail-roaded into the whole school into university into career thing that so many people get forced into. Sure, I loved studying history but really, it was pokémon that mattered more.

Gengro and I must have perched against that rail and talked over all of this for almost an hour and maybe just thinking of the good times we had had. Then Si appeared, to check up on us. He padded slowly around us. It wasn't hard to work out he was hurting, that he was stressed and anxious. He paused by the rail and looked out to the horizon, the same one I was facing.

"You okay man?" he asked in a concerned way, his eyes still turned to the sea.

I shook my head and took another drag on the cigarette I was smoking. My ninth in a row.

"Nope. You?" I quizzed in response.

"Nope. Could seriously do with one of a joint. Just in hope it would make me not give a shit," he replied. It was like he was talking within a hurt sigh.

"I think that would be a hope in vain. Anyway.. I think I'd prefer some whiskey," I said, turning my gaze to look upon his boyish face.

"I hate whiskey. It's so harsh. Makes me feel grumpy too," he explained in a downbeat tone.

"Maybe that's what I need. Just to get drunk and… fight someone." I scratched the side of my cheek where some rough bits of stubble irritated my skin. "Well. I'm going to get some. You coming?" I decided, with a beckoning question.

He shook his head.

"That girl in there is probably as cut up as we are and one of us needs to be there in case.."

"In case what?"

We looked at each other for a fleeting second and then, realizing what we just said looked away. We didn't want to even think of life without Chris. There was nothing we could do though. Except leave the doctors to do their job. I couldn't hack being in that hospital, knowing that the odds were against us. All I wanted to do was go out and get painfully drunk. Hopefully end up getting hit by a car so I could take Chris's place. That was my logic at the time.

"Well I guess I'll see you later," I decided before taking a poke ball from my belt and recalling Gengro.

"Please don't do anything stupid man. I don't want to lose Chris. I don't want to lose you either," he confessed, his voice becoming dry and harsh.

I tossed my lit cigarette down on the ground and put it out under the swivel of a foot, then nodded and turned to walk on.

I don't know how long I walked for trying to find a liquor store or an off license. None of them seemed to be open at that time in the morning. I suppose other than me, only winos would have wanted to get drunk before lunchtime. Eventually, I found one though. I just walked in and bought the cheapest bottle of whiskey they had on offer. It tasted foul. Burned my throat as it went down, felt like it was tearing my chest apart too. It's what I wanted though. I wasn't in the mood for tasteful wine, or even a few sociable pints of beer. I wanted my body to be in as much pain as I mind was.

For the rest of the day, I stumbled round town, drinking the hard alcohol like it was water to a dehydrated man. I took a trip round the city park. Sitting on park benches, just getting ruthlessly drunk. I felt like shit. Most of it is pretty much a blur to me now. I remember the odd look on the odd person's face as they saw me stagger around hopelessly. I probably shouted abuse at kids too. I'm must have bought another bottle of whiskey too, just to continue fuelling my lack of sobriety.

By about eight o'clock in the evening, the only light was the artificial, street lamp kind. That's when it occurred to me that when Chris had got run over, we never picked up the poke ball that contained his Muk. If Chris was going to be alright, he would ask almost straight away if his new pokemon was okay. That's when the alcohol really started taking over. As blurred as my memory is of these events, I still remember them occurring.

The drink took me on what felt like an epic journey, walking through busy city streets for miles and miles. I somehow managed to dodge detection to get onto the motorway once again. Thankfully it was a little quieter in the late hours of the evening than the commuter rush of the early morning, otherwise I might really have ended up in a hospital bed alongside Chris. I'm not sure how much of the path alongside the road I actually walked on. I wouldn't be surprised if I staggered across highway roads in my disorientated and drunken state. My eyes really felt like they were bleeding the whole time too. Being blurred by alcohol and having to walk under the painfully bright motorway lights that shone down from overhead.

After what seemed like another hour of staggering, I came about that part of the road we had used last distinguishable only by the large piece of fender bender ripped out by Scizor's earlier x-scissor attack. By that point, I'd managed to find the side path of the motorway. I know that much because I remember seeing that blue coloured sphere, rock back and forth in the dirt as cars drove by and having to dodge them to pick it up.

I grabbed it and began making my way laboriously back to where I had started from. I had to dodge police vehicles that probably would have pulled me over for walking on the motorway or for being drunk and disorderly. Somehow I manage to make it back into the city streets once again using the shadow from billboards and ducking away from where the bright motorway lights would have given away my position.

At night, the city was a miserably cold place. I was really starting to feel the cold temperature too. The forest had been at times almost unbearably warm and there was a sticky humidity in the air, so it would have been unnatural to wear anything warm - a mud caked t-shirt and some loose fitting jeans was all I wore. When it came to the urban jungle however, there was a constant harsh crosswind that brought in an air temperature of only a few degrees. I pressed the straps of my backpack tighter into my shoulders for just a fleeting second. It's so easy to forget you're carrying one when you're so used to doing so, but in a way it did a good job of blocking the force of the wind blowing from behind me. In one hand, I rhythmically tossed and caught the great ball containing the Muk, the other keeping my bottle of whiskey warm in the pocket of my jeans.

At that point, I decided that it was time to go back to the hospital. Maybe in the morning, I could wake up and find Chris was going to be okay. In doing so I must have walked through the wrong streets, or the wrong neighbourhood. Either way, I ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It must have been after midnight and with it being dark and me being a good deal less than sober, I more meandered haphazardly through the city trying to get my bearings. My sense of direction was never good.

I was walking through what I thought was a quiet deserted street when it happened. Midway through that continuous tossing of that ball containing Muk, a hand appeared seemingly out of no where to catch it that was anything but mine.

I stopped almost dead in my tracks and looked to the source of the theft. Medium height, broad shouldered and burly. Head shaved. He had a couple of teeth missing and a strong urban accent that could have made me sick. Gleeful eyes behind a crooked nose just glared at me. He wore a black t-shirt with the arms cut off and a pair of trashy jeans. Behind him stood two taller but thinner pals of his.

"I think I oughta keep this," he said, spit spraying from his mouth as he spoke. His skin was a greyish yellow as if the complexion of someone who smoked way too much.

Even when I was drunk and wanted to fight, I always looked for an alternative as if to try and make a half assed remark to do the right, civilized thing.

I looked him straight in the eyes and made a humbling face.

"Please," I said with a slight shiver due to the cold. "It belongs to a friend of mine who was hit by a car today," I explained, my voice wry and with a drunken slur to it.

The bastard just grinned and replied in an insulting sarcastically tone.

"Aw dear. Little snookums here has a friend who was hoirt and he wants to get him back his pokémon. Ain't that sad?" he asked, expecting laughter from his chronies. He got what expected, the most dumbass-sounding chuckle I think I've heard in my life. "Problem is he's drunk and not from around here. Where you from? Johto? Kanto?"

"Kanto."

"Yeah? I fucking hate little shits from Kanto," he spat aggressively. "You won't be getting this back for sure," he said in an irate tone as he tossed the great ball again. "Now, give us a reason why we shouldn't beat the shit out of you."

I stayed totally silent and just glared in silence at him.

"I said give us a reason," he intoned again. "What age are you anyway?"

At that point I realized there was no point reasoning. I was too drunk to care if they put the hurt on me. I probably wouldn't have felt it until the morning. I was gonna be hungover anyway. I raised my head and glared.

"Old enough to kick your fucking ass," I snarled at him. As soon as I did I felt his massive hand crack me straight in the mouth. I was too drunk to see it coming.

I dropped to the ground on my front, the blow having me knocked me down. I spat and rubbed my mouth with the back of my hand. The salty taste of fresh blood. Just what I wanted. At that point, my mentality was one of the 'kill or be killed' kind. I knew that a punk like him wasn't going to stop at a quick punch in the mouth. So I did what had to be done. I brought myself to all fours, pressing myself up stiffly by the palms of my hands against the cold hard concrete pavement. Then I sprang, using the balls of my feet to give me that push, shoulder first into his waist. It was half haphazard bulrush-rugby tackle, half mixed martial arts style-shoot take down. Whatever it was, it took the beefy bastard by surprise and knocked him straight on his ass. Before he had a chance to react, I shuffled myself quickly towards him and moved to bring my knees on the ground either side of him, sitting on him to restrain his movements. From there I brought my fist to his face. Then another. Then I just began to unleash all hell upon it.

I lost count of how many blows I landed on his face. I just unleashed every ounce of anger I had in my body, raining punch after punch on him, even pounding his head with my elbows when he tried to defend himself. At that point, his friends rushed to his aid. One grabbed me on my left arm, the other took my right. Together they hoisted me off him, but perhaps only just. I remember them struggling to hold me back, to contain my rage. I think they knew that violence against me wasn't going to put me down. After the day I had just had, all I saw was red.

After a moment, the big one began to try and sit up, shifting awkwardly on his elbows. His nose was some what more crooked than it was before, his right eye was swollen and his skin was inflamed as if to suggest there'd be bruising in time to come. I got a cruel sense of satisfaction from seeing my handiwork and perhaps even the expression of surprise that lay upon his face. I was sure he was used to fights, but being on the receiving end of a beating probably didn't happen all that often.

He spat an unhealthy looking splash of red coloured saliva containing a broken chip of yellow tooth.

"Alright you little shit," he said in a growl. It looked like it almost hurt for him to speak. I must have landed a blow or two to his jaw. There was also a dizzy roll of his head that suggested he had almost been knocked unconscious, his eyes swollen looked strained to be kept open. "I tell you what. I'll give you that ball of your friends back to you if you can beat me in a one on one battle. You lose, I keep it and the pokémon you battle with."

Still being restrained by his two cronies I just chuckled probably the most evil sounding laugh I've ever had.

"Care to raise the sticks a little bit big man? A thousand yen? Or are you Antaro fuckers too chicken?" I questioned cockily. I wasn't even thinking of the implications of losing. It never occurred to me that I may have lost a pokémon to some vile guy with more brawn than brain.

"Fine," he spat maliciously. "Lets see what you got."

At that point my arms were released by the skinny ones. I reached down to my belt and grabbed the first poke ball my hand found. Scizor.

"Go Scizor!" I declared in a slightly cheerful tone as I tossed the black and yellow coloured ball to the ground.

When it opened, the bug appeared in a flash. It uttered its name and came to stand at close to six foot, it's long thin red metal exo-skeleton legs clinking as they touched down on the ground. Those legs ran up to it's thick abdomen and to the thin but broad-shouldered torso from which to sharp crap like claws extended from. They snipped a little as the bug closed and re-opened them, his three pronged head turning from angle to angle in a series of quick twitches. Once again, the four oval shaped wings that extended from his back buzzed a little as they were flapped.

The big one came to stir before finally shaking himself off slowly and clambering to his feet. I had to give him credit for taking such a beating and being able to still talk and stand afterwards. He nodded slowly as he stared at the bug.

"Go Hitmonchan," he said before tossing down a generic red and white coloured poke ball.

Lavender coloured shoes gave way to thin brown coloured bandy legs that led to a torso of a pokémon boxer. The humanoid monster stood about a good foot shorter than scizor and was dressed for boxing. I suspected that with its gloves and natural fighter's stance, the pokémon was bred for battling. Nothing more, nothing less.

I stared down the punk again, ignoring his cronies who had moved back behind him.

"Scizor, focus energy," I commanded. Immediately the steel exo-skeleton-ed bug bent both of its thin arms and began channelling energy through its body, a series of bright lights shone within it until its torso glowed bright white.

"Hitmonchan, mega punch!" the punk replied in turn. Keeping on its toes and keeping it's guard up, the fighting pokémon moved swiftly towards the scizor and fired off a fast left jab to the scizor's armour, with the boxing glove clinking off seemingly harmlessly.

"Ha, scizor is part steel and you want to use normal attacks?" I mumbled insultingly.

"Nah, he's just steadying himself, Kanto boy," the big one replied before uttering his second command. "FIRE PUNCH!" he yelled fiercely at the humanoid pokémon.

"Hitmonchan!" the pokémon replied as if agreeing to its masters words before turning its entire body swiftly on its toes, swinging its right hand towards scizor. As it did so, its boxing glove became momentarily engulfed in flames before connecting solidly with the bug's torso.

If I'd been sober enough, I might have had a better battle plan, or told scizor to dodge the attack, but then - I wasn't sober. Because of that scizor must have suffered a great deal of pain as the fiery punch connected. The impact and feeling of his steely exo-skeleton becoming excessively warm and pressing against the bug tissue within can't have been good one.

"Sci.. Sci-zor," the bug said struggling to stay on its feet. Fire was the only thing the bug was weak to, but boy did it hurt it. I could see it straining, trying desperately not to hit the dirt. I needed to end the match as soon as I could and in my favour too, for everybody's sake.

"Scizor, hyper beam now!" I yelled in command. The bug took a slow unsteady step back, then jammed his right claw into the hitmonchan's side before opening it. The bright light that shone from his chest area shot down his thin arm and into his crab-like claw before he weakly opened his red pincers. What blasted straight out of his claw was a wide angled blast of concentrated energy.

I had to shield my eyes as the bright white beam struck the fighting pokémon. The hitmonchan had been hit with a colossal amount of force that it was knocked flying, spiralling through the air before hitting the dirt face first. As it skid to a halt, its wide eyes closed like little crosses. There was no getting up for it tonight.

The punk stood dumb founded, his mouth wide open.

I turned to scizor, with an apologetic look. I knew I had done wrong even when I was drunk and I felt mighty bad for it. The bug shot me a look of dissapointment, as if to clarify with me the fact I had acted irresponsibly.

"I'm sorry buddy. I won't ever let it happen again. You did well though," I said before crouching to raise the spherical black and gold container off the concrete to recall the bug and set it back in its slot on my belt.

"I'll be taking the poke ball and the money if you will," I said sneeringly.

He shook his head and grabbed the blue and red coloured ball that contained the muk and more or less through it at me.

"Two nights from now in the warehouse district. You'll get a lot more than a thousand," he said with a look of contempt towards me and then conceding a look of uneasy respect. He recalled his hitmonchan and turned to his cronies. "Come on boys, I don't want to have to look at this chump unless I have to." They turned and began walking slowly in the direction away from me.

I wasn't of the mind to demand my payment at the time. I just had to make a mental note of what he had said. The warehouse district, two nights. Scizor needed healing anyway.

At that point I began walking towards where I hoped the nearest poké center might be, hoping that I was heading in the right direction and that it was open. I was starting to sober up awfully quickly.


	5. Chapter 5

-1TRUECHARIZARD'S NOTE: I'm gonna update every Monday and Friday, check in then. Read, and review would be amazing. Give some feedback whenever you can!

"The poison is related to a chemical that was banned in Kanto several years ago. In attempt to exterminate a horde of tentacools, one of the tentacools evolved into a colossal tentacruel that levelled a holiday resort. The effect it is having on your friend is much different," the doctor began. He had got us sitting down for good reason. "It is keeping him in a vegetative state, preventing him from becoming conscious. Slowly it will prevent even light support machines from keeping him working. This is the first case of its kind and there appears to be no way of removing the poison or preventing its effects," he explained.

My heart just sank. It was an awful lot to take in. He could have explained Chris's state much more effectively with the words "He's fucked." I glanced over to Elisé, her eyes looked as if they were becoming glassy, like she was fighting back tears.

"Do you think there will be any chance of a cure?" Si asked. "I know a lot about medication that can remove toxins from the blood stream, even ways of corrective surgery.. Is there anything that can fix this?"

The doctor shook his head before correcting his black rimmed glasses on his eyes.

"The poison is contaminating his red blood cells slowly, any attempt to remove the poison from the cell itself destroys the cell. There isn't anything on the market or in research that can handle the toxin. It is radioactive as well, meaning that given too long cells could become cancerous," he entailed. "I know this is a lot to understand and I almost wish I wasn't the one to be telling you either or at least there was an easier way of doing it," he said. I looked at his face, it was one that detailed all of his anguish and sympathy for us. "In my career as a doctor, I've only ever heard of something even remotely similar to this and only one thing cured it."

Simon looked up at him with pleading eyes.

"What was it?" he said with a growing urgency in his voice. "If there is anything.."

The doctor cleared his throat and took his glasses off for just a second, and blew his hot breath on the lenses before wiping them. He put them back on again and readjusted them for what was the second time in less than five minutes. I'm sure he had a confidence to him, but having to tell us the bad news was obviously unsettling him.

"Well. If medical legend is correct then a blood of a pokémon would cleanse the toxin completely. The thing is, that medical legend revolves around another kind of legend. The pokémon kind. Has any of the three of you heard of Lugia?" he questioned.

The three of us shook our head. My parents used to tell myth and legend stories to me as a kid to put me asleep when I was a kid. My favourite one was about the knight that had to slay the most evil and dangerous Salamence that ever existed. I didn't remember any stories about Lugia.

"Lugia is a legendary bird pokémon. There have been some sightings of the creature over the years, namely in the Whirlpool Islands of Johto. There is said to be a pureness in it that can heal any wound. You'd have to do some research for yourself if you want to know more. I'm a doctor, not a pokémon mythologist and as such my knowledge is rather limited," he explained clearing his throat.

I didn't have to think for even a minute. Chris was one of a kind. The world needed a lot more of him. To lose him would be a disaster. If there was anything I could to prevent the loss, I would do it.

"How long do you think he has?" I piped up impatiently, expecting a quick answer.

"Hard to tell. A week. Maybe ten days," he explained, with a glum look on his face.

That's when I made my mind up just what had to be done.

"Doc, there's no doubt in my mind that you are a good and righteous man. You seem to care for your patients a lot more than I might. But if you let anyone turn off that life support machine, you're a dead man. You understand?" I asked giving him a serious glare.

He looked at me very strangely and nodded slowly. I'm sure he wasn't expecting abuse from someone a lot younger than him.

"We're going to get some of the blood of a Lugia. We will do whatever it takes," I said. My resolve was clear. That hangover I had been suffering only a few hours ago was now a distant memory. My mind was held well over matter. "If you want to help, then you can get a syringe or something that will allow us to draw blood from the bird."

The doc nodded slowly once again. He was still quite taken aback.

"You may have one hell of a task on your hands. You do however have my blessing and well wishing. If my ten year old son had your determination, I might actually understand how he thinks he will make it as a trainer," the doctor admitted with a slight chuckle. "I don't think I expected any of you to react in this way."

I nodded back to him understandingly.

"Even getting to the whirlpool islands may be difficult. But I will do anything I can to do it," I explained.

"I will get you some supplies if you need them. I suspect you're going to want to do some serious research and get back to me," the doctor said sternly. He reached into the side pocket of his white medical jacket and produced a small paper note bad and a biro and began scribbling down a series of digits. "This is my cell phone number, ring me if you need me for anything. I will meet you in the morning with things that might help you with the task," he said before tearing the note from the pad and handing it to me. "Any other questions?" he asked glancing to Elisé, Si and then finally back to me.

"How did the toxin get into Chris's blood stream? He was hit by a car, not injected with anything," Si pointed out curiously.

"I suspect it was on the glass of the headlights. There were fragments of glass in some of Chris's wounds. How the poison got onto the headlights is beyond me," the doctor explained.

I glanced at Elisé with eyes like daggers, she looked shocked but almost as if she knew something she wasn't telling. There was something to her expression that just didn't sit right.

"Where is the nearest library?" I asked.

"I can take us there," Elisé said with a hoarse sounding throat.

The doctor finally nodded for the last time and headed back to deal with another patient.

"Well Elisé. Is this why you've been so worried and helpful?" I said with an irritated tone to the shell shocked girl that sat beside me. "Your dad own a part of the sea? Is that it. Your family is so rich that you can use a banned poison to rid the sea of nasty tentacool?" I snarled.

She reeled back as if having to stifle tears.

"I don't know what you are talking about. My parents aren't even rich, I don't know why you think they are," she said biting her lip anxiously. "I love pokémon.. I don't know why anyone would try and exterminate them," she pleaded. "I don't know how the poison got onto my car.."

"So why do I get the feeling you're not telling us something we ought to be knowing?" I spat in question.

Elisé remained silent for a moment. As if acting as if she was distracted by something going on in the bare waiting room.

"I understand you're lashing out and blaming me because you're worried about Chris, but just please let me help you," she said slowly.

"Tom, we've only known her a day. It could have been anyone that ran Chris over and they might have just sped on. We don't know anyone in this town apart from her and that doctor, now I think we ought to just appreciate what we've got," Si explained.

I nodded and conceded. He had a point.

After that, the three of us went to the nearest library on foot. It was a big building that had its fair share of new and old books. In addition it had its own computer suite that had been brought in fairly recently. Thankfully it was open all night, to accommodate students at the local university who were pulling all-nighters to work on essays that were due the next day because they'd left them the last minute and figured online encyclopaedias could only tell them so much. If we were writing an essay that night, I'm sure we could have got an A+. We stayed up all night looking through every book in the building on legendary pokémon. We used the computers there extensively to trawl the internet on something that might give us a clue what to do. There wasn't a part of me that felt tired. Three cups of coffee an hour made sure of that. Also in a way, I kind of got an adrenaline rush from all our hard efforts.

From what we learned, Lugia was a large silver bird. By large silver bird, I mean one that was over seventeen foot tall and was considered the guardian of the seas. Just like the doctor had said there were vague reports of appearances in the whirlpool islands in Johto, people even claiming to have found silver feathers that belonged to the bird. It was also potentially the leader of the mystical birds of Kanto - Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres and perhaps related to its fiery cousin, Ho-Oh. Maybe the most important part was its typing: Psychic and Flying. If we had to battle it, we'd need to bring as many pokémon as possible that would be effective in battle against it. Rock types, electric types, ice types, dark and ghost may well be needed.

We left the library at around seven in the morning. We had a quick breakfast and got back to the hospital to pick up supplies. The doctor seemed to trust Simon a lot. He gave him several first aid kits, needles and syringes to collect the blood sample from Lugia, some drugs that would be otherwise prescription and an emergency surgery kit. After that it was a case of heading to the docks. We would have to find a boat that was headed to Johto over the next few days.

The dock area was a large one. It had its fair share of different boathouses, warehouses, ferries and all sorts. Some of it was set up for industrial use, other parts of it were more for private hire and such to interest tourists. We'd checked on the internet the night before to find out if there were any ferries that ran between Riverrock and Johto. As we expected though, the only boats that got any where near Johto were fishing boats and this was off season. We asked around in a variety of different places - sailor's taverns, the major ferry companies and even fishermen. There wasn't a single boat headed to Johto. "Too dangerous" they said. Finally one guy recommended that we rent a trawler from his friend only two minutes away. We did as he suggested and ended up going off to what was little more than a iron shack. A gruff man in his fifties appeared before we even got a chance to knock on his door.

He stood around 5'9 and had a thick head of grey hair and a grey beard to match. A bald patch showed on the back of his head and he had a lit wooden tobacco pipe swinging by the mouth piece from the corner of his mouth. His clothes could be described at best as scruffy; a woollen turtle neck with various oil stains and a pair of trousers with a hole at each knee.

"Morris just telephone to say you need to hire a boat?" he asked in a gruff voice.

I nodded, Elisé and Si just stayed silent by my side.

"Apparently no-one in the docks has the guts to rent a boat out to someone going anywhere near Johto at this time of year," I said slowly, looking the man in the eye and trying to get a good measure of him. "We'll pay whatever it costs."

He scratched his beard by his chin and paused to think.

"It's not the rental of the boat that will cost you. It's the deposit," he said taking a long puff from his pipe. "I don't know why you'd be wanting to go to Johto at this time of year, but it'd have to be a good one. I don't expect to get the boat back. Not at all. Never mind in one piece," he decided. "I don't want to have on my conscience that I'm letting three fools sail to their death either. You may think sea serpents are nothing more than pirate legends but I've seen them. At this time of year, the weather gets worse and worse the further away from the coast of Antaro. The weather brings the beasts and people are never seen again," he said before pausing to let things sink in.

Si looked very concerned. We'd been told a lot over the last two days that was hard to swallow. Despite my determination, I still got dry throats and shivers thinking of what we might be facing. Elisé looked very nervous to. She kept staring at the ground as if questioning what she was getting herself into.

"If you still want to go, I have three trawlers. I recommend the biggest one for this kind of journey but as a result, it won't come cheap."

I nodded. I didn't have the option of haggling and I wasn't prepared to try and cheat an old man out of a boat.

"Let us see it," I asked, glancing around the fenced off area of the dock. He led us down a slipway where a large trawler floated in between two smaller craft.

"Do any of you have any sailing experience?" he asked, glancing between the three of us.

"My father used to take me out in a rented yacht during holidays," Elisé admitted. "I think that's about it for me."

I was still surprised Elisé was still with us. I couldn't believe she was actually prepared to travel out on the open seas, probably setting ourselves up for our own doom.

"In that case the three of you will have to learn a lot very quickly," the old man explained. "It has an engine and I will talk you through it if you can come up with the money."

"How much will it be?" I asked.

He merely mumbled the response, a high amount which I knew neither Si or I could afford with the small amount of money we had saved. I looked at Elisé, her expression wasn't one of someone who knew they had a lot of money.

"We will find a way of getting the money. Just don't let anyone rent the boat out in the next day," I said with a sternness to my command.

"No danger of that," the old man said, removing his pipe from his mouth. "The best of luck to you though. I wouldn't fancy having to raise the cash for the boat never mind even thinking of travelling to Johto on it. Why would you be going?"

"It's complicated. We need to find a Lugia," I said, looking over the open sea. The day had an unholy greyness to it. Dark clouds mixing with white brought a thick fog with it, obscuring the horizons.

"Oh. Pokémon poachers," the old man mumbled with an irritated tone.

I shook my head.

"Our friend is sick, we need the blood of a lugia to give him even a fighting chance," I explained coolly.

The old man put the pipe back in his mouth and began smoking again. He gave another nod.

"Well. Come back to me whenever you have the money. I wish I could be more helpful but I'll need a boat that size when the fishing season comes. Money is pretty tight these days."

"That's fine. We'll see you tomorrow morning," I said before turning my back to leave his fenced off area. Si and Elisé followed me but at a slow pace, unsure of what I had planned.

"How the hell are we going to raise the money?" Si exclaimed in a slightly angry tone at me.

"I may have a solution," I said in a cool and decisive tone. The memories of the fight I had got in the night before rang true in my mind. "We're going to the warehouse district tonight. We're going to battle for the money to pay for the ship on the illegal circuit," I explained. I was entirely resolute in my ways. There was no shaking my decision or belief that we would achieve our aim.

"How do you know about this circuit?" Si asked, his curiosity spiking.

"The punk the other night told me something about getting more money in the warehouse district. Nurse Joy accused me of battling in some kind of underground match," I explained calmly.

"Well, that's all well and good. But to win money, you have to be able to gamble money. We don't have a lot of money to be gambling," Si shot back argumentatively.

"Guys.. I don't know if it would help but I have about twenty five thousand yen in my bank account. I know it's no where near the price of the ship rental but it's something to gamble with," Elisé said. She seemed to be adopting my calm composed manner. I had to handed to her; I was impressed.

I turned to Elisé and looked at her with a thankful expression.

"That would be more than a start," I said to her. I turned back to Si. "Si, we've got a lot of training cut out for us today. I don't think the warehouse district will be such a push over like the beach but we'll use the sand to train on for the day" I said.

"Alright. Well if you're right about this, then lets go down to the beach and get to it," he said in affirmation. He allowed a small smile to cross his face. Training was his forte.

Gengro, Scizor, Marshtomp. Those were the three pokémon I had in balls on my trainers belt. I had a few back on the ranch in Pallet town that Professor Oak looked after. I didn't think it was right to take them on my journey because I didn't feel ready to train them. That meant I had to work out how I was going to make the three I had with me count. Si and I decided we'd travel to the beach once again, whilst Elisé had to go to the bank and run a series of errands that would mean we had some money for the evening that would follow. It was around half ten in the morning by the time we got there, the beach was much quieter than it had been the day before perhaps in part to the weather that said to tourists "You're going to the museums today, not the beach." First to receive my training treatment was Scizor. Elisé, Si and I stood spread out over a stretch of sand as I sent the metal bug out.

"Scizor!" the steel armoured bug exclaimed in an irritated tone as if to say "What do you want?"

"I don't know what you want me to do to make up for my failure the other night Scizor," I began before clearing my throat. "But I give you my promise that if you let me help you, we will become far stronger than we were before."

The bug slowly turned to face me and nodded, looking me straight in the eyes.

"We have been through a lot together. I had to tame you from a wild unruly scyther into the disciplined warrior you are now. Few things in this life have given me more satisfaction to know that I had a part to play in making you strong," I confessed humbly. "That move combination I taught you is powerful. But it is too dangerous. I want you to forget how to use hyper beam. The last time I scanned you with the pokédex it said you were ready to learn iron head. If you are ready, then we shall practice it."

"Sci- Scizor," the bug declared, nodding again in agreement. I think it was too loyal to let one mistake come between the history we had between us.

"Okay," I said slowly before stooping to pick up a chunky piece of stone from the sand. I hurled it over towards the bug and issued the command. "Use iron head!" I ordered.

On my command, Scizor beat its steel wings and charged head first towards the rock, its arms used to propel it forward faster. The rock made contact with the bug's forehead and smashed into what seemed like a thousand pieces.

"Good. Again," I declared, finding another rock to throw towards Scizor. The bug repeated the process, smashing the stone into itty bitty pieces.

It was to be a long day.

By the end of that long day, Scizor had learned not just iron head, but replaced his knowledge of focus energy with brick break, a move I had kept in my rucksack on a technical machine disk. Simon had tutored his Blaziken how to seismic toss his opponents too. Marshtomp and I got a bit more acquainted as well so I could see some of his battle capabilities. We did a fair bit of battling with some of the people that went to the beach when the weather cleared up a little in the late afternoon too to give us some experience.

We arranged to meet Elisé in the poké center in the evening and I got my chance to apologize to nurse Joy for my drunken appearance only two nights before. Simon and I sat down on a long stretch of comfortable leather seats in the poké center, as we waited for Elisé and had a talk over things.

"I can't believe the last few days," Si admitted, leaning back into the back of his chair and crossing his legs over each other by the ankles.

"Me neither," I said shaking my head. "In some ways it feels like it's been a lot more than just a few days and in other ways it feels like everything has happened a lot faster than it has." I ran my hand through my dirty fair hair and looked over to Simon, a thoughtful look rested on his face.

"I know what you mean. What I can't believe is you," Si said with a slight smirk. "I think I was a bit more dumbfounded whenever the doctor told us what he did. You were ready for kicking ass all action hero style. Whatever happened to the dopey dozy Tom that day dreamed too much and was slow to get stuff done?" he asked in a slightly amused tone. "Man, I'm impressed. It's like you've got Chris's energy," he said chuckling a bit.

I smiled quietly for a moment. Chris always did have that get up and go attitude that we all needed more of.

"Yeah, I've impressed myself a little. Though admittedly, this whole thing has shaken me up. I think I've managed to stop worrying about Chris though. We know what we have to do and we'll do it. There's never been anything in life as clear as this."

"I wish I could have the same resolution you have. I keep thinking about that trip over the sea we're going to have, or the task even finding a Lugia. I remember what a hard time we had travelling through Hoenn just getting the badges. That wasn't an easy journey. Don't get me wrong, I loved every second of being with our pokémon and travelling with you and Chris. Even the competitiveness we had between the three of us. It was amazing," he explained with a sense of happiness reminiscing about Hoenn. His blue eyes almost twinkled, a smile slightly stretched the freckles on his face into a glow. "The thing is.. Hundreds of trainers every year make that same journey. What we are about to embark on has probably never been attempted before. We're chasing after something that might only exist in legends and library books. We could do so or we could die trying"

I sighed for a moment, and closed my eyes slowly.

He had a point. He was being a lot more realistic than me.

"There's no one out there that will put themselves on the line for Chris like we will. I don't see us as having a choice in the matter. Knowing that there is one thing that might just save him, we have to try and acquire it. If we don't, we run the risk of living the rest of our lives knowing that we didn't take that chance for him." I looked Si in the eyes with complete conviction. "Besides. It's Chris."

Si nodded.

"He'd do the same for us, wouldn't he?" he asked.

"Without a doubt in my mind, I know he would."

"What about Elisé where does she fit into all of this?" Si questioned.

"I don't know. She seems to be as devoted as we are but there seems to be something more to her. We've only just met her and you two act like you've been friends for years. She's not letting on about something, I think. For some reason, I think she'll slow us down if she comes," I admitted gravely, almost frowning on myself for what I had done.

"I think we're going to have to take her though. She seems to know how to sail. Well.. at least more than we do," Si said quietly.

I nodded.

"We'll talk it through with her when she gets here. We should worry about tonight now. I don't know exactly what this underground fight scene is gonna be like. I know there's money involved and I suspect it's not going to be the same kind of battling we're used to. That punk I got this cut on my lip from was a hard bastard. I suspect there's a lot more like him," I said with a fairly serious tone.

"Looking forward to meet him," Si said rather sarcastically. "Do you think this could be a bit dangerous?" he questioned. "We have no other option of raising money?"

"To my knowledge, Riverrock doesn't have any country clubs with those arrogant stuffy middle aged men that sit in board rooms all day and think they have the toughest pokémon around. We need the money by tomorrow and I don't see any bank managers offering to lend us money to go on this "expedition", do you?" I asked in an almost matter-of-fact tone.

I looked around the poké center for a fleeting moment. Nurse Joy was tending to people's pokémon, doing the regular take poké balls and put balls into the healing machine. Didn't look like there was many pokémon badly injured and needing bandaging. It was mostly kids coming in with their pidgeys and ratattas. There was a potted plant in the corner that looked like it was in need of feeding.

"I suppose not. I don't fancy grand larceny either. So we battle and gamble. I suppose it sounds like the best plan yet," Si said looking a little bit down in the mouth. "Maybe Chris can be part of this though," he said sounding more sprightly.

"How do you mean?" I questioned, examining his face with a curious look to my eyes.

"He'd want to be part of this. Maybe for the experience, or maybe because he'd want to do his bit. His pokémon haven't seen the light of day in a while, we could use them to battle, give them some exercise," he said thoughtfully.

I didn't like the idea too much. I was a bit more cautious.

"Maybe. But only if we have to, I don't want them becoming injured. We don't know them quite as well as Chris does and I don't think he'd like to wake up and find his vulpix is missing a tail," I pointed out.

Si nodded again.

"That won't happen. Anyway, I'm gonna try and sneak a power nap in before Elisé gets here, I'm starting to feel the bags under my eyes. We haven't slept in a day," Si decided before throwing his head back and closing his eyes. He yawned deeply and then seemed to be asleep. I didn't have the same ability to sleep at any occasion like he did. In a way it was impressive how he could close his eyes and be asleep so quickly. In school Si was always the kid that went to bed at the right time and got up at the right time. I'd stay up silly hours in the morning either hangout with my pokémon or sitting around watching TV and playing games and end up falling asleep in classes the next day. In the poké center I guess I should have been sleeping, grab a bit of shut eye whilst I could. We hadn't slept a wink the night before and I was basically running on adrenaline. I reckoned though if I were to wake up, I'd only be more tired and cranky than I was before hand. Elisé was supposed to arrive on the scene soon enough anyway.

When she did, she looked refreshed and ready to help. She walked gracefully, almost as if floating. Her mousey brown hair was tied in a ponytail and there was something about the way the light caught her blue eyes. She carried a backpack around her shoulders and wore a denim jacket.

I looked up at her from my seat in the poké center and gave a nod.

"Hey," I said with an expressionless look on my face.

"Hi. Sleepy head catching some z's then?" she said giving a nod to Si's sleeping form.

"Yeap. He's doing just that. How's your day been?" I asked casually.

"Not too bad. I got us some money to gamble with, got some supplies and caught up on some sleep myself. I'm so ready for tonight," she said excitedly.

I raised an eyebrow.

"Are you? Do you know what we are getting involved in?" I asked with a creeping seriousness to my tone. "This isn't all fun and games you know. This could be pretty hairy. Do you intend to come with us on the boat?" I inquired.

Elisé froze a little and an almost hurt and offended look on her face appeared.

"Of course I do. I feel responsible for this mess so I will do my best to fix it," Elisé said.

"Like I've said, you don't need to feel responsible. It was an accident that you could not have fore seen," I asserted.

"That doesn't change what happened. Please. Let me come with you, I can help," she pleaded.

I nodded.

"I'm not sure if I have a choice." We seemed to be saying that a lot recently. We kept being put in situations that were inescapable. It wasn't good. "The way you reacted yesterday, to the poison coming from your headlights. I can't help but think your holding back on something," I said to her with a suspicious gaze over her.

"Why do you think that? You've only known me a few days," Elisé replied with a wounded tone. Her eyes were avoiding contact with mine.

"Exactly. Yet you act like you've always known us. Why do you feel responsible?" I asked, keeping that suspicious tone. "Why did you have the toxin on your headlights?"

"Why are you bringing this up again?" she asked starting to sound really hurt. "I don't know why. It just was and I feel responsible because I was behind the wheel whenever Chris got knocked down. I don't know how much simpler it could be Tom," she said standing up for herself.

I sighed, feeling I was getting no where with my 'investigations'.

"Alright. I take your point. If I find out you haven't been honest with me, then I'll be very disappointed," I informed her.

She looked down at her feet and nodded.

"Why don't we stay here and relax for a bit, or get some dinner. I can't see them do any underground battling until the black of night," she suggested, as if abruptly changing the subject.

I wasn't going to argue with her any more so we did just as she suggested. The three of us ordered a take out and we sat and munched it in our seats at the poké center. We took time to feed our pokémon as well and made a quick visit to the hospital to pick up some of Chris's belongings. Before we knew it, it was time to go scouting around the warehouse district.

"Before we go, I think I should give you your disguises," Elisé said.

"Disguises? Are we going undercover or something?" I asked in an extremely curious tone.

"Yesterday the people on the beach recognized you. For a start it might hurt your reputations to be caught battling in one of these street leagues and second of all, some of these punks might have a penchant for revenge. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the crime teams had involvement with the underground league," Elisé explained. The girl had a point. We'd ran into the odd gruff member of Team Snagem in Oore and even back in Kanto Team Rocket had an ugly habit of rearing their heads from time to time despite being in decline. We'd heard a bit about Team Magma and Aqua in Hoenn but from the sounds of things they were either ignorant street punks or science nerds that had their frustrations to pent up over not being able to get laid in college.

"So what have you got for us?" Si asked sounding somewhat better rested than previously.

"Nothing much, just a few hoody, pairs of sunglasses and some fake beards," Elisé said with a slight grin crossing her lips.

I had to hand it to her, it was a good idea.

"Okay. We'll have to try them on," I replied.

Elisé had got the three of us identical hoodies and sunglasses along with wash on tattoos and fake beards. I had to have a giggle when I looked at Si. The combination of his three day old facial hair and the 60s beatnik style fake beard he had was a pretty funny sight. I guess though, with my black stub goatee and the temporary sleeve of tattoos that ran up my right arm I must have looked like the front man to a Metal band. We looked like we'd fit in some dingy dive that had fights breaking out every five minutes. That or a skate park.

Once our disguises were put together, it was time to go looking for the warehouse district. We convinced Elisé to drive us round the area to find where the fights were going down. She was reluctant at first and her nerves were quite shaky when she was behind the wheel but we asserted that the only way she'd get over her fears were to face them.

It took about fifteen minutes driving around various blocks in the dark to find out where things were going down. It was a pretty industrial area, used to store things that would be transported by ship to other regions. There were a ton of warehouses, many of them looking like they had been newly built. They didn't stand out much. Finally we came across one that stood out a little from the crowd. A multi-storey wooden shack that had fallen into disrepair over the years was the source of the eye sore.

It appeared from the outside to be an abandoned warehouse had loud heavy music blaring from it that suggested it was anything but abandoned. We parked the car round the block and walked the rest of the distance, trying to keep out of sight in case any cars passed us in the otherwise empty street. Several large burly men stood outside the wooden peak roofed warehouse with their arms folded over their chests. They all looked somewhat identical - tough, tattooed and bald. Wicked piercings protruded from various unusual parts of the face as if a testament to how hard the men that wore them were. I most certainly didn't want to give them any trouble. They looked a lot bigger than the man I had fought only a few nights before.

The three of us strode up in a line with me in the middle, avoiding direct eye contact with the men. We only looked set to enter the building. Suddenly one of the men moved to stand directly in my way from entering the building.

"Hold on. What makes you think you're getting inside?" he asked in a gruff, low voice.

I reached into my pocket and grabbed a couple of hundred yen in note form. I put out my hand and went to shake the bouncers hand. He met the hand shake and slipped the money from my hand without hesitation.

"We've come to battle. What are the rules?" I asked, as if acting on level with the man.

"Tonight it's two on two, multi battle. You'll need ten grand to enter. Per team mate. Winner gets a hundred g's," he explained. "Don't let anyone else touch your pokémon and try not to make any trouble. It gets rowdy in there quickly. The three of you are on your own if you get in over your head. Now get inside and give your money to the guy behind the counter."

The three of us did as he suggested and trudged into the wooden warehouse. The building was packed out to the rafters with people - punks, cue balls and bikers were standing on the ground and in the wooden balconies, surrounding a make shift arena in the middle of the building. There, a machop was locked in a grapple with a riolu that had them in a stalemate that seemed to last forever. The place stunk of sweat, booze and cigarettes. My mother would throw a fit if she knew I was in such a dive. Along with our noses being obnoxiously assaulted by body odour and blood, the cheering and heavy music going on it was a mission to hold a basic conversation between the three of us. We made our way through the raucous crowd to a wooden table where we had to pay into the tournament. A shifty looking character sat counting wads of cash, surrounded by yet more burly looking baldies.

"Team name?" he inquired, cutting straight to the point.

I glanced to Si for a second. He just shrugged his shoulders, not having a moment of inspiration. I looked back to the shifty looking money counter.

"Steel Skulls," I said thinking of the training I was giving Scizor earlier.

"Alright, I need twenty gs from you," the man declared. Elisé reached into her handbag and produced several large wads of cash and handed them to me. I put it somewhat forcefully on the table and nodded. "You'll be paired with your opponents soon enough. You want to place any bets, you can do it through me."

"Put that extra five grand on us to win the tournament," I instructed Elisé and turned back to the man. "What are our odds?"

"Crusher and Bruiser are in this tournament, so you've got about ten to one chance. We haven't seen you around before, so you get outside odds for being unknowns," he explained. He shook his head for a moment and showed a grin. "Though feel free to bet. I don't mind at all, it's five grand in my pocket. I don't get many teams betting on themselves to win an entire night's tournament"

"That's fine. And it sounds good to us. Five g's it is," I said giving him a slick smirk and putting the money on the table. He counted his way through each wad of cash in turn before nodding and writing down in a lodge book our bet.

"Go and watch some fights," the slimy looking man asserted.

We did as he suggested and watched some of the battles going down. I was curious as to the nature of the battles. I wondered might there have been fight fixing to ensure the right people ended up with the right amount of cash. Everything however, seemed legit. In the matches we saw, a golbat battled with a raticate, an electabuzz fought with a mightyena and a red eyed flaffy attempted to shock an energetic mankey all in the time we were waiting for the tournament to begin. After the flaafy finally hit the dirt though, the money counter from earlier appeared from the crowd carrying a microphone.

"Alright leeches, the tournament is about to begin!" the short scruffy looking man announced. With that a tremendous cheer broke out from the raucous crowd of punks. I caught a glimpse of the one of the taller, skinnier punks that I'd had the misfortune of bumping into two nights prior. I said nothing though. I didn't want to bring attention to the three of us; Si and Elisé didn't say anything, but they looked really out of their depth. It was obvious half of the crowd were in a gang of some description, probably committing illegal deeds on a daily basis. Selling drugs, protection rackets, the works. About a week before our time in the forest, I'd read a news report saying that Team Rocket was part of a much larger organization that was responsible for a lot of street crime. Team Rocket was more there to steal rare pokémon for one of the syndicate's nameless leaders and to act as a smokescreen for other activities. Despite gang wars breaking out in Johto, people often tended to care more about pokémon than anything else.

"First match will have some punks from Kanto who call themselves the Steel Skulls go up against the Ice Wings. ARE YOU READY?!" the man said drawing another ecstatic response from the dangerous crowd. "Challengers, step up and come to the fight pit!"

I turned back to Si.

"This is it man, you ready?" I asked him. He nodded slowly. "Alright, then lets do this," I ejaculated energetically. The pair of us stepped to the edge of the bit, having to manoeuvre our way around some hefty guys we really didn't want the trouble of bumping into. We looked over the pit to our opponents. They were both obviously bikers. Tall and skinny but with a muscular leanness. They wore heavy black boots, jeans with holes in them and studded leather jackets. They both had very similar hair styles. Long pointed clumps of hair were gelled and spiked at gravity defying angles and dyed different colours.

"Alright challengers, on the count of three send out your pokémon," the announcer declared. The crowd died down in silence, letting tension build as they waited for the pokémon to appear. "Three. TWO. ONE! GO!"

"Scizor, have at 'em!" I declared, grabbing the spherical containment device. The ball sprang open and the steel bug emerged, declaring his name as a sign of readiness and flexing its arms awaiting for the fight, like a martial artist beckoning to his opponent.

"Swellow, do it!" the green haired punk facing me declared before tossing down a great ball, containing his pokémon. What emerged was a large blue bird with a white coloured chest and red markings. Its wing span was impressive and its feathers protruded distinctly. It took to the air almost immediately, flapping its wings to keep it about ten foot off the ground.

"Swellow!" the bird shrieked in between flaps.

"Go! Cloyster!" his blue haired team mate beside him announced, throwing forward a standard red and white poké ball. What emerged was a spined clam-like shell with a sinister looking face that grinned from the center of the shell. It moved very slowly, stirring by moving the flaps on the front of its shell.

"Cloyster!" the shell pokémon announced as if cackling maniacally.

"Come on Blaziken!" Si said to the right of me, sending forth his signature fiery bipedal pokémon. It took a fighters stance and declared itself with a proud sounding "Blaze!"

I turned to Si and smirked. This was the type of battle I'd been craving for so long.

"Have Blaziken focus on Swellow, I'll have Scizor cut a piece of Cloyster," I told him. Si nodded in agreement. "Scizor, agility towards that cloyster!" I declared. As I did so, Simon uttered his command to his Blaziken.

"Blaziken, brave bird that Swellow!" he declared. The fire bird pushed off the ground by its long, powerful legs and turned its beak directly towards the smaller blue coloured bird. As it did so, the green haired man gave his commands.

"Swellow, arial ace the shit out of that Blaziken!" the punk snarled. Each bird flew towards each other like two cars in a game of chicken. Neither of them were for swerving to the side out of the path of destruction. The swellow however turned itself to the side to avoid the larger bird and pushed its beak into the Blaziken's side, breaking its attack before it even got into the air. There was a cheer from the crowd as the fire bird dropped to the ground and landed on his talon like claws, coming to crouch to break the momentum of his fall. He was clearly injured, his breathing became staggered as if it was fighting to catch its breath.

"Hang in there Blaziken," Simon called into the arena beside me. He looked quite concerned about the well being of his pokémon. To be honest, so was I. I had a lot of respect and admiration for Si's Blaziken. Every so often we'd wrestle to test our strength. Of course, the bird almost always won, but it was still a good challenge. I was worried too that the match had already started poorly.

On the other side of the field, Scizor rushed towards the Cloyster only to have his speed diminished by a series of sharp rock-hard spikes that shot from the shell pokémon's interior as they clinked off the bug's armour like skin. Its trainer had ordered a spike cannon attack that whilst it didn't do that much damage, had been an a brilliant way of reducing the bug's momentum.

"Alright Scizor, try and get close to do a brick break attack," I ordered.

"Sci-Scizor!" it declared as it hovered towards its icy opponent.

"Cloyster, withdraw!"

The bug attempted to slam its steel arm into the side of the cloyster's shell, but the water/ice pokémon merely tightened its focus and strengthened the defence of its shell. The blow bounced off harmlessly.

"Alright, Swellow, wing attack that Blaziken!" the other punk called out as an order.

"Blaziken, hang in there and use reversal!" Si commanded.

"Swellow!" the blue coloured bird announced as it dived downwards towards the Blaziken with its wing extended straight, intending to make contact with the Blaziken for devastating effect. The fire bird moved his arms and opened his talons to grip hold of the Swellow's wing. When the two met, the Blaziken used the force of the blow from the Swellow's wing to bring it crashing onto the ground, back first. The two birds backed away from each other and the swellow awkwardly took to the air again, flapping its wings slowly as if it had become bruised by the blow. Blaziken looked as if it was hanging in the fight, but perhaps only just.

I turned to Si with a slightly concerned expression..

"This could be going a lot smoother. Your Blaziken took quite a hit from the first attack and Scizor doesn't seem to be able to land a solid blow on that Cloyster," I admitted with a grave truth to my voice. I looked over the battle pit and suddenly the idea came to me. "Have Blaziken throw Scizor towards Swellow," I instructed Simon. "This might just work."

"Blaziken, seismic toss Scizor towards Swellow, now!" he declared. The flaming bird gripped the bug by the waist and span on a circle by the base of his foot. Using the momentum of the spin the bird finally let go of the crimson coloured bug and Scizor went flying through the air towards the Swellow.

"Scizor, use X-Scissor to latch onto Swellow's wing!" I yelled.

As it got nearer to the blue bird, the bug opened his crab like claw and closed them to latch onto the birds wing. It looked like it was holding onto the bird with all its might, dangling in the air by a thread of feather.

"Swellow, use wing attack!" the bird's trainer yelled.

"Swellow!" the bird called and began trying to shake Scizor off awkwardly. The struggling in vain however only allowed Scizor to get a better grip on the Swellow.

"Cloyster, hydro pump that Blaziken!" the other punk ordered the shelled pokémon.

"Cloyster!" it announced deeply with that slick grin still resting on the face on the front of the shell.

On the order, the shelled water pokémon spat out a large almost missile like body of water, more like a brick of water than a stream.

"Blaziken, dodge it!" Si ordered. As the hard body of water came rushing through the air towards the tall chicken like pokémon, the bird launched itself into the air, letting the water crash harmlessly into the ground.

"Now brick break that bird in the beak!" I commanded Scizor with a grim determination. The bug did as it was told by slamming its claw like a fist sharply into the bird's head, the other claw used to hold onto the wing of the blue bird.

"Cloyster, hydro pump that bug off Swellow," one of the punks growled in command. A blast of water shot out of the shell heading straight for Scizor, but in the confusion of the two pokémon locked in aerial combat, the blast sailed past harmlessly, soaking some of the crowd in the balconies looking down on the fight.

"Blaziken, do what you do best and blaze kick that cloyster right in the shell!" Si ordered.

The fire pokémon had landed from its previous jump and stood with a gleeful sense of pride as if mocking the water type for its feeble attempt to end the battle prematurely.

Blaziken rushed towards the shell pokémon and leapt upwards. As it did so it pointed its foot towards the cloyster and its talon became engulfed in flames, hot enough to burn through steel. He planted a fierce kick into the side of the water pokémon inflicting a lot of damage on the Cloyster's shell.

"Come on Swellow, wing attack that Scizor off of you, you can do it!" the other punk commanded.

"Swell-Swellow!" the bird exclaimed, flapping its wings frantically.

The bird shook violently, finding its attempts to shake off the bug and stay in flight were once again in vain. It even tried flying higher within the warehouse, almost to the roof before shaking it

"Use iron head Scizor!" I yelled in command. The scizor gripped tight of the bird's wing using its claw and swung itself head first toward the bird's head. The heads of both pokémon connected with a violent clash, causing the crowd to go wild. The Swellow's eyes closed shut as it fell, letting us all know that it had just been knocked out.

The two pokémon began spiralling towards the ground, scizor pulling the bird down by its weight.

"Jump off Scizor and brick break that Cloyster!" I declared.

Scizor released its grip from the Swellow's wing and dived through the air towards the shell pokémon, claw first. As it did so, the Cloyster's trainer declared a retaliation.

"Spike Cannon that Scizor off of Swellow!"

"Cloyster!" the pokémon declared gleefully.

The rock hard spikes shot out from the shell as they had done before, clinking off Scizor's body. This time though they served to knock Scizor back a bit, preventing him from landing the hit on the Cloyster.

"Blaze kick again Blaziken!" Si yelled. The fire bird once again leapt into the air and slammed its fire covered leg foot first into the side of the cloyster's shell. The shelled pokémon was really starting to take a beating.

"Iron Head Scizor!" I ordered with gusto, causing the bug to begin rushing towards the water pokémon with its steely head lowered, it leaping from spot to spot using the sheer power of its thin metallic legs.

I looked at the cloyster's trainer. The punk had a sinister grin sitting on his lips. One that I should have read a lot better. He'd already given up.

"If I can't win, then I'm going to have to make you two suffer," the man called over to us. "Cloyster, explosion!" he called out to his pokémon.

"Cloyster!" the shell pokémon declared one last time before carrying out its trainer's choice of attack.

On the command, the Cloyster somehow detonated itself. The crowd gasped in sheer disbelief as a sharp flash of light went off in the middle of the warehouse. The explosion uttered forth a concussive blast that was as self destructive as it was destructive to its opponents. Shockwaves stirred through the entire warehouse as the the sheer force put a heavy hit on scizor and Blaziken, causing them both flying in different directions.. A thick dust covered the arena for a moment and the crowd fell silent, waiting in anticipation to see who would stand in the wake of the destruction. I should have seen it coming.

"Blaze.." Si's fiery bird uttered as a harsh whisper as it collapsed in the dust of the arena.

"Come on Scizor, I'm counting on you!" I called out.

Straining itself, Scizor slowly rose from the ground and flapped its wings, trying to cool itself down from the heat of the explosion. "Sci-Scizor," it iterated with a sense of self-satisfaction at its victory. A cheer from the crowd broke out amazed at the pokémon's prowess.

I had to smile. How could I not. With its metallic exterior, the bug could take one helluva beating and keep on going.

"Team Steel Skulls are the winners of the match," the announcer declared, bringing the microphone to his mouth. "Clear the pit for the next match, we've got some more fights coming up. Bring your bets to me."

Si and I recalled our pokémon, taking time to congratulate them both for their hard efforts. I turned to Si with a nod and a smirk. We'd made our mistakes but we were through to the next round, we knew what to expect from the competition at least.

The three of us stood to watch a few more of the matches. A larion and totodile were teamed up against a murkrow and a dugtrio, a gligar and a weezing took down a dustox and an onix whilst a tank like venusaur stood on all fours alongside a zangoose in taking down an prinplup and a medicham. We were surprised at how well these punks had trained their pokémon. Despite worrying what might happen if we were to lose, both Si and I were positively buzzing off the adrenaline rush of battling in the warehouse. Every punk in the room had a new found respect for our battling abilities. We might have been the newbies with the Kanto accents, but we were strong trainers that provided a spectacle worth battling on.

"Alright, round two starts with the Steel Skulls battling the Ice Bombs," the contender announced. "Teams, make your way to the pit again for your match."

I turned to Si with a new resolution.

"Remember what I was saying earlier about using Chris's pokémon last?" I asked him.

He nodded and smirked as if knowing something I didn't. "Vulpix and Marowak," he said quietly to me. He had read my mind as to what I wanted to do.

The crowd gave us room to move this time and we stepped to the edge of the battle area and grabbed a ball each from our belt.

"Three! Two! One! Begin!"

"Go Vulpix!" I cried out excitedly as Simon did the same with Marowak.

From the poke ball I had just tossed down, a small orangey-red coloured fox-like creature emerged. Her eyes were like large, bright shiny spheres and it turned its head in curiosity to look behind it. Alongside it, another canine like pokémon emerged. This time it stood on two legs, wielded a bone club and wore a skull as a helmet on its head. It wagged its boned tail and similar to the vulpix looked behind it as if in curiosity.

"Vulpix, Marowak, we're going to give you orders for this battle. Chris isn't feeling too good and wants us to battle for him," I explained, telling the two pokémon a half-fib. I really didn't fancy explaining to two pokémon in the middle of a booze stinking warehouse what had happened to their trainer.

"Vulpix!" the fox declared stiffening its body rigid in anticipation of the opponent.

"Maro-Marowak," the brown coloured dog-man said with a nod in agreement.

Our opponents this time were two female trainers. One was a short and podgy woman who wore an oversized black t-shirt and had frizzy hair. The other was a taller, skinnier woman that had half of her head shaved bald, the other side of her head had her brown hair trailing down to her shoulder. Just like many of the men in the warehouse, her face had numerous unusual looking piercings and she wore a black tank top over her torso.

I turned to Si and gave him a small smirk.

"Dykes?" I whispered jokingly referring to our very butch looking female opponents.

He gave me a quick glance and nodded silently, allowing a laugh-stifling smile cross his lips.

"Go Nidoqueen!" the shorter woman yelled, throwing forth a black and gold ball that sprung open when it hit the ground. The ball yielded a four foot tall blue coloured pokémon that stood on two legs. The female pokémon looked powerful, having spines that protruded from its back and strange rabbit like head. It swung its heavy tail crudely, and called out a shrill but still somehow deep sounding "Nidoqueen!"

"Go weeping bell!" the taller woman called, tossing down a ball that contained a green coloured plant pokémon that was shaped like a bell with lips. Two leaves extended from the side of it which allowed it to float a foot off the ground.

"Use razor leaf on that marowak!" the tall thin women yelled. On her order, the weeping bell spat forth a cloud of razor sharp leaves that swirled and darted towards the marowak viciously.

"Marowak, get your head low!" Si shouted in command. The dog-man pokémon dropped to one knee in order to try and avoid the attack.

"Vulpix, jump onto Marowak's head and ember those leaves," I ordered the small fire pokémon. Immediately, the vulpix leapt onto the skull on the ally's head and spat a tiny puff of flame, disintegrating the leaves instantaneously.

"Nidoqueen, poison jab that little rat!" the larger woman commanded, referring to the flame coloured vulpix. The large blue coloured beast began rushing towards vulpix, its feet thudding into the ground with each step. The female pokémon extended a claw directly towards the vulpix in a punch that was meant to poison the fire pokémon.

"Jump now Vulpix!" I called out hurriedly.

"Vulpix!" the six tailed fox called as it hopped into the air, somersaulting over the nidoqueen to dodge the attack nimbly.

"Marowak, bone rush that beast!" Simon commanded.

"Marowak!" the ground pokémon announced as it sprang forth and swung its club, cracking the bone off the side of the Nidoqueen's head with a resolute smack. The blue coloured female staggered back a few heavy steps, attempting to shrug off the pain of the blow. The crowd uttered another cheer.

"Now vulpix, use tail whip on Nidoqueen!" I yelled. Without turning, the female fire pokémon whipped against the poison pokémon's rear. It did little more than tickle the blue pokémon, but it served its purpose of knocking the poison pokémon off its guard.

"Headbutt Marowak!" Si ordered.

"Marowak!" the dog-man declared deeply.

The ground pokémon lowered its head and charged forward, skull first into the spiked pokémon's hard gut.

"Nidoqueen, retaliate with an iron tail!" the heavy looking woman called out. The blue pokémon twisted to try and carry out its attack but strained. It was flinching at the impact the marowak's attack had caused only seconds before.

"Weepingbell, use vine whip then wrap on Marowak!" the skinnier, tank top wearing woman declared.

On either side of the bell shaped grass pokémon, a long green vine extended from and shot quickly towards the ground pokémon. They slapped the ground pokémon directly across the face that both stunned and injured it at first then the whip-like vines coiled around the stubby arms of the Marowak, preventing it from moving with ease.

"Nido.." the winded pokémon declared, shaking off her previous injury.

"Got any plans this time Tom?" Si asked turning to me. I nodded with a slick grin.

"Have marowak use bonemarang," I suggested to my freckled compadré.

"Marowak use your bonemarang attack!" Si said, following my good advice.

"Maro-Marowak!" the ground pokémon said reeling a bit from the strain placed on its wrists by the plant pokémon. The pokémon slowly but surely twisted itself just enough to throw the bone in a circular motion towards the Weepingbell.

"Vulpix, use flamethrower on that bone!" I ordered the small fire pokémon. Vulpix opened her mouth wide and breathed out a long stream of fire on the bone as it span through the air, temporarily setting it alight and adding momentum to its sail through the air. The bone crashed hard into the grass pokémon's exterior and the flame seared its skin. The pokémon was knocked to the side for a moment before the bone came back, crashing into it for a second time. The second crash has the pokémon collapse in a fainted heap on the floor, instantaneously KO'd. The vines that were coiled around marowak disappeared, slipping back into the grass pokémon's body without harm. I smiled. Just like a character out of an 80s TV show, I loved it when a plan came together.

"Weepingbell return!" the thinner woman called, pointing her pokéball and recalling the bell like pokémon back to its spherical container.

"Nidoqueen, body slam that marowak!" the larger woman ordered, taking advantage of our distraction.

"Nido!" the blue pokémon exclaimed, dropping her weight viciously onto Chris's marowak with a heavy thud. Marowak hit the dirt front first and struggled to stand.

"Maro- WAK!" it announce in a stressed state, using its front paws to try and raise it off the floor. It was as if the ground was giving away for poor marowak and he didn't have it in him to get up again. He just crashed back down in an injured mess.

"You did well, Marowak, now come back!" Si called glumly, raising the pokéball to return Chris's ground pokémon with a bright red beam of light. He turned to me and frowned. "Guess it's down to you again."

I nodded and called to Vulpix, who was now facing the blue coloured Nidoqueen standing over twice its size. "Vulpix, use confuse ray and be careful around her!" The vulpix reared onto its hind legs and a small spherical ray of light appeared from the end of its shiny nose and began spiralling its way towards the bigger beast. When the ray made contact with the larger pokémon, it began swaying, acting as if it was dizzy and in a state of confusion.

I smiled. I knew exactly what I was doing this time.

"Nidoqueen, body slam that little rat into the ground!" the fat black t-shirt wearing woman cried out.

"Vulpix, dodge it!"

The poison pokémon thundered towards the vulpix and attempted to slam it like it had done with the marowak, only to slam into nothing but hard ground as the female fox hopped just to the side.

"Flamethrower!"

The fox opened its mouth wide again and let out that stream of fire that completely engulfed the blue pokémon as it lay face down in the dirt. When the vulpix finished her attack and the flame settled, the nidoqueen remained face down. The crowd cheered as Si and I stood victorious again.

"Winner! The Steel Skulls are through to the final!" the announcer declared into the microphone, the speakers carrying the words to echo throughout the noisy warehouse.

"Well done vulpix," I said with a smile and lifted the poke ball. A red beam of light appeared from the center of the ball and sucked the vulpix back into the striped sphere. Si and I took a step back from the center of the pit and turned to give each other a high five.

"Haha. Chris would be proud to have seen that," Si said sounding somewhat ecstatic.

I nodded. "Damn right he would be," I replied knowingly.

I turned back to see Elisé behind us, standing almost in awe.

"I can't believe how good you guys are. I mean, I knew you were both serious trainers.. But wow!" she blurted out.

Si and I just had to chuckle. We never doubted each other for a second. The three of us turned back to watch the other match, a Dusclops and a Ninjask were being used by two trainers taking on a Rapidash and a Gible. We watched intently, trying to get a good hold on the battling style of each of the two trainer teams. The next match was going to be the all important one that decided whether we'd get to rent out a boat or not. Finally, after a series of turnarounds a cheer was heard from the crowd and the only pokémon that stood was the Rapidash.

"Alright leeches, as you were all hoping, Crusher and Bruiser are through to the finals again. That means that the Steel Skulls will be facing them in the final. Get your bets in people, because it's gonna be a big one. It took a while for the crowd to settle and get ready for our next match and both Si and I were starting to get serious butterfrees in our stomach.

"I'm using Chris's Feraligatr," I informed Si.

"In that case, I'll take Raichu, the combination of electric and water ought to be a pretty strong one," he replied.

"Crusher and Bruiser get to the pit. Steel Skulls, do the same. This is it. The big one," he said speaking into the microphone. Si and I looked at each other and nodded, before stepping to the edge of the battle pit. We seemed to have the crowd on our side for sure this time, as if a sway for the underdogs against the house regulars. There they stood across the pit, glaring at us in expectation with their arms folded across their chests. Crusher stood around 6'6. He was well built man and had what must have been the biggest looking arms I've seen in my life. Bruiser on the other hand was a thinner and slightly shorter man, with a sly pointed ness to his nose and ears. Crusher wore a black and white striped t-shirt and a blue pirate-esque bandana around his forehead whilst Bruiser wore a red hoody with a large black 'M' on the front of it and a pair of ¾ length black trousers. I could have recognized the outfits anywhere. One of them must have been ex-team aqua, the other ex-team magma.

"Challengers are your ready?" the sly announcer stepping up to the pit and asking with a microphone brought to his mouth again.

Si and I nodded, whilst Crusher and Bruiser did the same.

"Send out your pokémon on three! Two! One! Commence the battle!"

In almost perfect synchronicity, Feraligatr and Raichu sprang out of their balls in front of us whilst on the other side of the field a Machamp and a Graveller stood.

"Graveller!" exclaimed the heavy set pokémon that stood around three foot in height. It really wasn't much more than a grey coloured four armed, two footed pile of rocks with a wide angled mouth and a pair of beady eyes but it had a certain toughness to it that couldn't have been denied.

Its taller, humanoid ally stood alongside him with a menacing look on its face. It stood flexing his four muscular arms, awaiting orders from his trainer and growling a deep "Champ!"

"Thunderwave that Machamp!" Simon commanded his Raichu.

"Chuuuuu!"

The long eared mouse concentrated for a moment and allowed the yellow circular patches on his cheeks sizzle a jagged stream of electricity from them. In a matter of split seconds, the stream shot towards Machamp and coiled around the five foot tall humanoid, striking it then dissipating. The Machamp hunched its back and its movements became somewhat slower and more laborious. It had been partially paralyzed by the attack.

"Graveller, use magnitude!" Bruiser commanded, looking at the rock pokémon expectantly. The rock pokémon jumped a foot or so into the air then slammed itself down. When it did so, a small shockwave seized through the ground causing the entire warehouse to vibrate. A crack began cutting through the ground and opened up beneath Raichu, pulling the three foot orange electric mouse into a crevice. It struggled in the crevice to get free, panicking a little as it did. The ground attack had hurt the orange coloured more than was to expected and it looked in stress from the wound.

"Feraligatr, water gun on that graveller before it can do any more damage to raichu," I said to the water pokémon. Without needing be told twice, Chris's pokémon followed my order, attempting to look after his team mate. The large reptilian pokémon opened its jaw wide and spat out a series of fast flying shots of water towards its rocky opponent. When the shots collided with the Graveller, the pebbled monster looked positively stunned. The power water has to erode rock can be a pretty efficient one and the Graveller looked ready to collapse in a pile of rubble.

"Machamp, use Cross Chop on Feraligatr!" Crusher yelled as an order to his four armed humanoid pokémon. Slowly the grey skinned fighting type rushed towards feraligatr intending on striking it with all of its four arms at once. Before I had a chance to respond, the muscular pokémon had managed to score a heavy hit on the taller water pokémon.

"Gator.." it grunted, feeling the agony of four hands strike it in the torso with pinpoint accuracy.

"Feraligatr, use hydro pump!" I ordered.

The gigantic water pokémon watched its opponent in anticipation, the red spines that ran down his back stood sharply, waiting for the machamp to approach. When it finally got within close range, feraligatr opened its mouth wide and began spitting harder at the fighting type.

"Raichu, thunderbolt those water blasts!" Si decided loudly.

The Raichu began concentrating again and declared a mighty "CHUUUU!" as it let rip a mighty blast of electricity from its entire body. The bolt struck the water at full force and the fluid conducted the whole hit into the four armed pokémon with a jolt.

"Maaaachaaaamp," the humanoid pokémon said as it took the full hit, stumbling backwards to its own side of the field.

"Graveller, use rock throw that feraligatr!" Bruiser called out.

"Grav-" the rocky pokémon announced as a rock materialized seemingly out of no-where in each of its four arms. It began hurling them at the crocodile like pokémon. They shattered with some force against the scaly blue hide of the water type, inflicting some mild injury on the feraligatr. The water type shook off the rocks though and focused itself, waiting for the next order.

"Alright gator, water gun that graveller off the field!" I declared. The water pokémon began focusing itself, getting ready to spit water at its opponent when he was rudely interrupted.

"Change of plan kids!" Crusher called out to us. "Machamp, seismic toss graveller at Feraligatr!" The four armed pokémon limped towards his ally and forcefully picking him up the rocky monster over his head with all four arms threw him with all the strength it could summon in its body towards feraligatr. It was as if they had stolen our old battle tactics. Except they had their own tricks up their sleeve.

"Graveller, self-destruct!" Bruiser ordered his earthy monster just as it was about to collide with Feraligatr.

Before Feraligatr could spit out enough water to push the Graveller away from it, the rock/ground type caused a blast from deep within itself, causing massive damage to itself and Feraligatr. Just like the Cloyster's explosion, the self-destruct shockwaves ripped through the entire building as rock, earth and dirt went flying in different directions. I had to shield my eyes just to avoid being blinded by the blast. A cheer emerged from the raucous crowd once again. They sure loved big moves.

When the dust settled, we got to see which pokémon remained standing. Thankfully Raichu had protected itself using the cracks in the warehouse floor but the same could not be said for Chris's pokémon.

"Gator.." the water pokémon gasped desperately, seizing up from its injuries.

"Come on Feraligatr, I've seen you take a worse beating this and stand to tell the tale," I pleaded with the water type. It was to no avail. Maybe it was only Chris's voice that it would truly listen to, but I could not encourage the blue reptile to keep itself from hitting the dirt. It slipped into an unconscious state and I recalled it almost reluctantly with its containment device.

I turned to Si.

"It's all down to you," I said giving him a pat on the back.

"Machamp, remember that Technical Machine move I taught you?" Crusher said cynically with a big grin. One I just wanted to see wiped clean off his face. "Use Earthquake and lets never see that rat again," he said in an evil sounding tone.

"Maaachamp," the four armed humanoid pokémon declared trying to shake off the paralysis and carry out its move.

"Raichu, this is it, you're going to have to go all in. Thunderbolt, full power!" Si yelled excitedly.

"CHUUUU!" Raichu yelled at the top of its lungs as it sprang into the air using the strength of its lightning bolt shaped tail. It closed its eyes then let rip a mighty blast of lightning from its entire body. The bolt ripped into the fighting type with a severe shock, shaking its body to the core.

The Machamp stood rigid, not able to say anything or move. It was fully paralyzed and it was fully KO'd. Its eyes became closed like thick black spirals and the humanoid collapsed face first in a heap of dust on the ground.

The crowd went absolutely wild, Si and I were getting hand shakes and pats from the back from excited spectators and gamblers, men that we'd probably have crossed the road to avoid on any other occasion.

It was the type of match I'd lived for. I felt exhilarated. It was probably one of the best matches I'd ever taken part in my life.

"Raichu, you're the best!" Si said with a smile running forward to cuddle and congratulate the electric mouse.

"Folks, you only find bouts like that here!" the announcer said. "The Steel Skulls are the new Champions of the warehouse. Crusher and Bruiser, you've lost your titles. All hail the new champions!" the announcer declared. "Shit, they bet on themselves to win the tournament as well," he grumbled irately, having realized his previous mistake. "Alright, you better come and collect your winnings at the desk. We've got a couple of grudge matches for all you punks that want something to gamble on before daylight comes," he added.

Despite getting glares from Crusher, Bruiser and a few of their supporters, the rowdy crowd made way for us as we went to collect our winnings.

"You did it guys. I'm totally amazed!" Elisé declared excitedly as we walked through the warehouse. She was grinning from ear to ear too. She was especially a cute one when she had a smile on her face.

Collecting the money was a lot easier than I expected. I thought the shifty guy would have been holding back on paying out so much. It seemed appearances were deceptive in his case, he paid out in full with a big grin on his face.

"I love it when underdogs win. Everybody bets against them," he said still grinning. "What are your names?"

I paused for a second. We were wearing disguises for a reason, we didn't really want anyone there to know who we really were.

"I'm Trev and he's Jez," I spat out hastily after an awkward second.

"Right Trev and Jez, the cash is all there and you two are expected to make a return. Don't keep us waiting," the announcer said cockily.

I don't think I'd ever had as big a wad of cash as I did in my hand just then. It almost gave me a head rush to know I had so much.

Just as we were about to exit the warehouse, a voice beckoned to me.

"Leaving so soon?" it questioned deeply. "I know who you are trainer. I know what you want too," the deep masculine voice boomed. I wanted to walk on, I couldn't remember where I had heard the voice before but I hand and I was finding it deeply disturbing for some reason. "Beat me in a battle and I'll triple the money you have in your hands. Lose and you will agree to give up your journey," it challenged.

My entire body became rigid stiff as a shiver ran up my spine.


	6. Chapter 6

-1I don't know why I accepted the challenge, I just did. Well that's probably a lie. I find it difficult to back away from challenges. Whether it is battles, or drinking contests, I'm a sucker for gambling. Maybe also I have a part of me that likes to see me fail - a repressed personality characteristic that gets a kick out of seeing me stressed, or out of being in trouble; backed up against a wall even. Maybe also that whenever someone tries to convince me to do the right thing, I can't help but do the exact thing contrary to that.

"Tom, you can't even think about taking his challenge," Elisé pleaded with me, gripping my arm and trying to lead me away. "Si and I are following you to find the Lugia. If you lose, Chris won't have a chance in hell.."

"I think it would be a bit unfair on Chris to win a few battles with his pokémon and not use my own as much, don't you?" I asked as if trying to make a half assed attempt to appeal to her better nature. "Besides - you've seen my pokémon and how I battle. I won't lose," I said with a cocky raised eyebrow.

Elisé shook her head in disbelief.

"Please don't do this. I don't think you know how powerful this guy is," she said still using that pleading tone.

At that point, some of the punks around us had picked up on what was going on. They had turned away from watching the battle they had been watching and brought their attention to us.

"Come on man! Fight this guy!" one random guy said encouragingly.

"Yeah, battle man!" another joined in.

Before I knew it what seemed like the entire crowd had begun chanting like ten year old kids in a school playground.

"FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"

Si just looked at me and shook his head silently with a look on his face that only expressed his disapproval.

It was much too late for that. By telling me that this guy was powerful only made me want to test my limits. I couldn't back down when I had the entire crowd chanting for me to battle. How could I when they were cheering for me? Maybe if a sense of logic kicked in or the realization that the entire night had been for Chris's benefit. Instead pride and that self-destructive cockiness.

I turned back to look to the man. Elisé was right. He was powerful. He was a good few inches taller than me and extremely muscular. By that I don't mean he was the "I can bench a car" type. He wasn't as big as that, but he had the shape of a warrior. I would have said I was lean but big built. I could wear a small sized t-shirt and it would stretch a little but I could get away with it. This guy could wear an XL t-shirt and it would be tight. His arms looked as if they would be twice the size of mine. That punk I had fought the other night I had gotten a little lucky with. He was slow and heavy whilst I was full or rage. This tall ass motherfucker I would not fancy my chances with. If I tried to fight, I'd end up on my ass. If I tried to run, I'd probably only die tired. Finding something heavy to hit him in the face might work. His face though was powerful in itself. He must have been somewhere in his mid thirties but without wrinkles to prove his age. His features were chiselled - a strong chin, a defined pointed nose and a small forehead. As for his mouth, it was small but capable of wrapping itself into a slick, sinister grin. He kept his jet black hair neat, short and simple. Likewise was his dress sense. He wore a partially open dark blue shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a pair of smart grey trousers, belted around his waist. In a warehouse full of biker types, street punks and ex-crime team members, he definitely stood out. Much like his physique, his presence was a powerful one too. His posture was of the kind world leaders are taught to adopt. His broad shoulders held back, his back was almost rigidly straight and his chin was held in pride. Not to sound like a new-age hippy, but there was a certain aura about him too. A demeanour even. He knew just how good he was.

Worst of all though, I seemed to be familiar with him. This man that I almost feared was one that I had met before. Yet I didn't know where from.

"Well. Are you going to grace this crowd with your expertise, trainer?" he said in a deep, smug tone. He stared at me with his eyes as if peering through me like it was nothing.

I nodded slowly and looked up to meet his gaze, trying to summon some courage.

"I will," I said with strong resolution.

A cheer broke out from the crowd. We both knew where we had to go. The battle pit. As we walked towards it, a tunnel through the crowd seemed to form for us. Every man and woman just stepped to the side for us. If I had glanced back, I'm sure I would have seen Si and Elisé shake their head in disbelief. In a way I probably couldn't blame them.

"I reckon this calls on a one on one battle. Two rounds though," he suggested, glancing downwards toward me.

"Sounds good to me," I said with a rather cocky tone to my voice.

"Fagan, we have a new grudge match," my challenger declared in a booming voice across the crowd. "One of the new champions, versus myself."

The announcer from earlier looked up from a clipboard, holding a wad of cash in his other hand.

"Is that so?" the sleazy man chimed up with a gleeful look in his eyes. He grabbed a microphone and went to address the crowd.

"Alright kiddies, I don't know if you've heard it, but we've got a grudge match finally worth betting on!" he said with gusto. "One of our new champions versus an old favourite. Remember leeches, you only get battles like this here. So nobody has to know our resident pokémon master, y'all hear?" he said, his voice echoing from the speakers in the warehouse with a little crackle of feed back. "Step up and make your bets with me, the battle will be on in five minutes," he declared.

I didn't know what the announcer meant, how could my opponent be a pokémon master? It made me a little uneasy, but so did having to wait so long. Those five minutes felt more like fifty without Si and Elisé sticking around to watch me battle.

"Alright, this is it, this is the last match of the night and it's gonna be a good one," the announcer yelled into the mic. "This is two of the toughest trainers I've witnessed battle put against each other. Challengers, get to the pit!"

We both stood and faced each other across the arena.

"Alright, are you ready? Three! Two! One! Battle!"

Immediately, my opponent grabbed and whipped down a black and gold coloured poke ball from his belt.

"Magmar, forward!" the black haired man declared.

What sprang from the ball was a stocky bipedal fire pokémon that stood around four foot tall. I could feel the heat being emitted from its flame coloured body from where I stood. It waved its fire tipped tail swishy and flexed the four long, thick spikes that protruded from its back. Its feet kept a good hold of the ground, grinding its sharp nails into the ground as it stood waiting for waiting. Its short, claw like arms swung loosely by its sides in anticipation.

"Magmar," it said rather sternly, looking a little bored already.

"I've just caught this one. I think though, you can appreciate the power of fire pokémon," he declared with a intimidating grin. "There are few things stronger than a blast of fire."

I smirked back at him. Some trainers just didn't know when to stop talking themselves up.

"Maybe like a big wave of water?" I suggested, still smirking. "I've just caught this one too."

"Go Marshtomp!" I yelled excitedly, grabbing a ball from my belt and throwing it down. I figured I may as well play with type advantage. I figured also that it would have made for a fair fight to use my newest addition to my team.

The mud skipper pokémon looked back at me looking a little confused.

What am I doing here? I was having a nice little sleep. What did you wake me for?

"Marshtomp, I reckon its about time you battle a little. You could do with some exercise. Can't be so docile all the time, you know," I coaxed him.

Alright, but I want some extra chow for this later.

I nodded. "Alright, that can be arranged," I said rolling my eyes a little. "Anyway, start this off with a water gun!" I yelled in command.

"Marrrrrsssshhhh!" the pokémon exclaimed with some merriment to its voice. After a few seconds of making strange guzzling noises, it finally spat out several blasts of water towards the fire pokémon.

"Magmar, flamethrower!" the black haired man responded in order.

The fire pokémon made an 'o' shape with its lips and spat out a powerful stream of fire from its mouth. Marshtomp's attack seemed to just disappear in a cloud of steam as the fire powered through the water blasts. The blast of flame made contact with Marshtomp and knocked him back with a tremendous display of force. He shook it off well though and a look of determination crossed his face.

Alright, now it's on

"That's the spirit, Marshtomp, hang in there!"

"Whilst water may put fire out, a good fire can evaporate water," the man explained with that sneering smirk still resting on his lips.

"How does it fair against the power of the ground though?" I asked in a rather mocking tone. "Marshtomp, spray that Magmar with a mud shot!"

The mudskipper did as it was told and spat out a thick stream of mud from its mouth, water mixing with dirt from the surroundings. He did it with such force and speed so as to completely cover the opposing Magmar in seconds flat.

"Mag-mar," the fire pokémon uttered, caked in mud and trying to shake some of the mud off of its body.

"Magmar, use a smog attack!" my opponent replied, as if a little on edge from the effect of my previous attack.

The fire pokémon wriggled a little in the mud and called upon a thick, purple smoke from its spines. The purple mist began spiralling towards Marshtomp as if it were a ghost walking through walls.

"Marshtomp, step out of the way!" I shouted as a warning.

The water pokémon coolly stepped to the side as the smog attack hazed towards him.

"Now, use take down!"

Before my opponent had a chance to respond, the blue skinned pokémon had hurled its heavy body directly at the slow moving fire pokémon with full force. When the two collided, the Magmar dropped to the ground, landing on its back and scrambling awkwardly on its elbows.

"Magmar, quick, ember!" my opponent ordered his pokémon. The Magmar, still lying on its back shot out a small flicker of flame from its mouth towards Marshtomp. The flicker landed right at Marshtomp's feet, springing up in a small column of flame. Steam arose and Marshtomp, stood with his skin looking some what more charred than it had done before.

"Marsh!" Ouch!

"Just a little more. Water gun!" I shouted in command.

Just as I had ordered, a splash of water struck the Magmar, having come straight from Marshtomp's mouth. Coated in mud and prone on the ground, the fire pokémon wasn't really up to much. The blast of water that came from the water pokémon extinguished what little fight the Magmar had in it left.

"Mag-mar" the fire pokémon groaned in pain, before it gave up the ghost and closed its eyes, beaten.

"Magmar, return!" the man grumbled said with a degree of hesitation and reluctance in his voice. He grabbed the the black and gold spherical containment device and pointing it towards the fire pokémon, recalled it back to the ball.

"It seems you have over come the power of flame this time, but what about the power of the mind?" he said with a sharp grin crossing his lips. "Alakazam! Show this youth the true extent of your power!"

From another ball, a slender but curious looking pokémon arose. I could have closed my eyes and still felt the pokémon's presence. My mind was buzzing with all sorts of thoughts that hadn't been in place before. I had to put it down to the pokémon's psychic powers. That's one thing I knew about its kind. Whilst only around five foot tall and lacking strength in its brown humanoid body, it was one of the fastest and most headstrong pokémon ever recorded. I didn't know how well my opponent had trained his, but at that point I didn't fancy my chances much. It stared dimly at Marshtomp with its narrow eyes, twirling a spoon in each hand. Two long, moustache-like tails of hair extended from its long eared head that seemed to stretch and contract as if being scratched by the kitsune's telekinetic powers.

"Marshtomp, I want you to launch a take down attack against Alakazam as sharply as you can, now!" I declared.

"Marsh!" it barked in agreement.

Although still looking a little weaker and more charred by the Magmar's attacks, the Marshtomp sprang wholeheartedly towards the psychic pokémon, intending on slamming it to the ground with the weight of its finned body.

"Not so fast little one," the man sneered with that hideous grin curling his mouth again. "Alakazam, focus blast this cretin," he snarled in command.

The bi-pedal fox creature brought its arms together and twirled the spoons it held in its hands menacingly. It stared straight at Marshtomp, then closed its eyes as if focusing an internal energy. Just as the water type had launched itself from the ground towards its foe, it was quickly knocked down again as an invisible force clashed against his body. Marshtomp hit the ground in front of me with a hefty sounding thud. Things didn't look so hot.

"You did well Marshtomp, now return!" I intoned congratulating my pokémon as a red line of light returned the pokémon to the storage device that I now held in my hand. Shrinking the ball and putting it back in a nook in my belt I reached for my only remaining pokémon. Gengro.

"Come on out Gengro," I said aloud without even the need to toss down the ghost's poké ball.

From seemingly out of no-where the purple spectre appeared on the battle field in front of me, ready for its mischief. It frowned a little when it saw its opponent, seeming somewhat disheartened.

Remember the last time I had to fight one of those?

"Yeah, I know Gengro.. But that was then. I know it's risky, but maybe.. Just maybe you're faster than it," I said in a plead.

Don't be expecting much, but I'll do my best

I had put up Gengro up against an Alakazam before and he had got creamed. If I had another choice, I probably would have taken it but the fact remained that I didn't.

"Thunderbolt, now!" I ordered.

Blinking for a second, Gengro's entire body flashed with light as a giant bolt of lightning zapped from it, heading straight for the Alakazam.

"Protect, Alakazam," my opponent ordered with a coolness to his voice.

Thrusting its arms forwards, a hazy blue reflective shield of light appeared in front of the fox-like pokémon deflecting the electric attack and letting it dissapate harmlessly.

"Shift to the side and shadow ball!" I chimed in quickly.

Dancing a foot to the right, the ghost composed itself and waved one of its short stubby arms. A series of four black coloured orbs of mist, shot swiftly from the center of its body towards its opponent.

"Alakazam, use your psychic attack, send those balls right back at him!" the powerful looking man intoned.

On the order, the bi-pedal kitsune pokémon closed its eyes and returned the balls right back at the ghost.

"Gengar, watch out!" I warned as soon as I could. It was much too late however, the balls of shadow struck the ghost back in much the same way as they were intended to strike the psychic type.

Cough Cough Don't be expecting me to stand up to another one of those, I can't handle those attacks as well as I can dish them out.

"Alakazam, just end this pathetic excuse for a pokémon. Psychic attack, now!" the black haired man sounded off.

I didn't see Gengro surviving another psychic attack and I knew that he had little chance of taking down Alakazam in one hit. I didn't like the idea of putting him at harm, but there wasn't much I could do. I remembered the utterly stupid agreement I had made. If my opponent won, I would have to give up my journey. Why? I do not know.

"Gengro, I'm sorry to have you do this, but destiny bond!" I yelled in command.

As you request

The Alakazam closed its eyes for a moment and moved its arms far in front of its face. For a second, nothing happened then the spoons the psychic type quivered and bent effortlessly, as if melting in a furnace. The twisted spoons focused what I knew was about to happen. A bright white light glared from the cat-man's eyes outwards towards Gengro. The ghost however had for seen this happening just as I did and upon my order surged towards its opponent and coiled its ghostly form around the psychic pokémon's battle armoured body. Not able to withstand the power of the psychic attack, the ghost fainted but in doing so brought the Alakazam down to the ground with it.

For a second, all power in the building seemed to disappear. A horrific screeching noise was emitted from the speakers, the lights flickered dead and the hard rock music that pumped out of the speakers went dead. When the power returned, a surprising cheer went out from the crowd. Both Alakazam and Gengro lay comatose on the ground, awaiting to be recalled and healed.

"Return Gengro!"

"Alakazam, return!"

"One more round, trainer?" the man in front of me boomed as a suggestion, his teeth catching the light as he grinned widely.

I shook my head. I don't think I would have battled on even if had another pokémon, even I had a choice. It had sunk in what I had been doing, what I should have realized before I had even begun the battle. I hadn't been gambling for money, I had been gambling needlessly with the future of a friend.

"We're quite done," I said in a seething tone. I couldn't help but want to wipe that grin off his face.

I turned to leave, this time having to fight and push a little to get through the crowd. I wasn't leaving the pit in the same was I had entered. The crowd had turned fickle very quickly.

"There you have it, another great match!" the announcer declared. It was probably more great for him than anyone. People didn't tend to bet on draws all too often, meaning he was raking in a killing.

"I shall see you soon. Tom," my opponent bellowed towards me. Bastard knew my real name. How the hell did he do that? He couldn't have overheard the three of us talk earlier. Surely he couldn't have.

Finally I caught up with Si and Elisé. They both looked at me and nodded. Elisé had little expression on her face, but I could feel a sorrowful mood within her. I could tell Si was angry though. He wasn't often angry, but I could feel when he just seethed in anger. Worst of all, he was angry with me.

"I'm sorry guys. I don't know what I was thinking," I said glumly to the two of them.

"Yeah, me neither, you fucking asshole. I don't want to talk about this right now. We'll discuss it in the morning," Si warned. It was like being told off by a parent who instead of yelling at you and telling how angry they were with you, told you they were ashamed and disappointed.

As we walked to the car, I turned to Elisé with one question in mind.

"Elisé, who was that guy that I battled? Why did the announcer say he was a pokémon master?"

"You don't know who that guy was?" Elisé asked in a surprised tone. "Do you have an Elite Four challenge in Kanto?"

I nodded. Most regions with a pokémon league had their own Elite Four challenge. Most league tournaments would only run once a year, some would run less than that. In that time, there'd be challengers to the title of league champion. To separate the wheat from the chaff, "victory roads" were built. In Kanto, that meant that if you had collected the eight regional gym badges, you were invited to navigate through the elaborate system of natural caves near the Indigo Plateau. Once through, you fought four of the best trainers in the region, who would be called on whenever a challenger had successfully got through the Plateau. Very few trainers each year would get anywhere near contesting the Elite Four, Victory Roads were typically dangerous and it hadn't been uncommon the past for trainers to die on the way through. Then actually managing to meet and defeat the elite was a serious feat. Members of the "Elite Four" were decided every few years by the Pokémon League council to make sure the trainers were still top of their game.

"Well he's a member of the Antaro Elite Four. Kanos is his name," she explained.

I searched in my head for when I might have seen the Antaro pokémon league on television or even spent time to watch the news. It had felt like months since we were properly sitting down in anywhere other than on a grassy knoll. I couldn't recall anything. So where had I met this Kanos character before? I just couldn't place him in my mind.

"What was he doing in an underground circuit?" I quizzed curiously.

"Kanos doesn't have a good reputation. He's very rich but they suppose for the wrong reasons. He's under investigation by the police for various crimes - conspiracy, arson.." she paused for a moment, then stared straight ahead of her with a grave expression on her face. "Murder," she finished, swallowing hard.

"Murder?" I asked entirely surprised.

She just nodded quietly as if not wanting to talk about things. I didn't press any more, things were awkward enough between the three of us.

The car ride was one of the awkward, silent kind. I don't think anybody said anything. The glares I got from Simon spoke louder than words.

Elisé drove us to the hostel near the hospital. Simon and I checked into a room with several bunk beds, whilst Elisé went home to sleep. The room was basic and quite bare, though we were sharing with some random Eastern European backpackers that kept themselves to themselves - they were asleep by the time we checked in anyway. It wasn't long before Si and I were asleep ourselves. Despite having much that would play on our mind and potentially trouble us, the lack of sleep we had over the previous forty eight hours ensured we would drift off in the cold and simple beds within a matter of minutes of getting into them. We figured we might as well get as much shut eye as we could since there was no point getting on a rusty old fishing trawler and having to face harsh winds and the cold sea without a few z's.

For me, it wasn't meant to be. That night, I dreamt a dream that was similar to the one before. Full of the giant lizards, faceless people and harsh voices. There was one thing that stuck out though. I could have sworn I saw Kanos's face in the dream. Worse still it might have explained where I had seen his face before - in a dream. I woke up in the middle of the night, seizing from the breathlessness and pain in my chest that I associated with those dreams was as strong as ever. I still didn't have any cigarettes to fix that problem either and I was pretty unsettled by seeing the face of the man I had battled the night before. I fought for hours to get back to sleep and eventually did, only to awaken by Si minutes later .

He stood over my bed, fully dressed in his travelling clothes, expecting me to get up.

"Is our pokémon master deciding he's too good to get up now?" he asked bitterly. I'd never seen him with such an angry look on his face.

"I can't believe what you did last night," he said with a fierce tone and a sharp glare about his blue eyes. They were like daggers made out of ice that were formed purely to stab me. "I've been following you almost blindly the last few days. You've become this wannabe alpha-male character that thinks he's a natural born leader. Whatever happened to the down to earth guy that acted dozy and in his own little world all the time?" he questioned viciously. "Is this journey going to be about Chris or about you wanting to be the hero in all your little fantasies?"

I didn't know what to say, his words kind of stung me. I shifted and sat up in bed, bringing my feet to the ground by the side of the bed. I looked at him with a frown resting firmly on my face.

"This is about Chris.. Do you think I want him to die?" I asked with a guilty anger to my words, glaring back at him.

He shook his head and paused, his words becoming hesitant and awkward, his anger shifting more into sorrow.

"I just don't know what has happened to you."

"I guess it's just remembering what my Dad said when I was younger. You get a measure of a man by how they cope under pressure. I suppose in some ways I have been trying to prove myself. I just feel I can become better than what I am now. That and I guess I've been acting impulsively a lot since Chris's accident. It's as if I need to rise to the occasion or something," I admitted.

"You don't need to prove yourself to anyone," Si said, with a down expression. "I'm sorry I snapped. Truth be told, I don't know what I'd be doing on this situation if I wasn't following you. I'd probably just mope around and wait for the funeral arrangements to be made, wishing that things weren't the way they are. I think though that last battle really set me off. Why did you even think about battling?"

"I don't know. I just got caught up in the whole thing and compelled to battle. I started acting like all those punks around me as if I was one of them."

"I wouldn't do that. I reckon your Mum might complain about you getting all the tattoos," he joked, his face showing a cheeky smirk instead of the sad and confused one from before.

We both laughed.

"Alright, well let me go back to sleep and dream of piercings for half an hours before we get going," I said, yawning slightly.

"Half an hour. If you don't wake up, I'll throw a cup full of water over your head," he warned with another chuckle.

"Yes mother," I said in a jokily bored sounding tone before crawling back into bed and sleeping.

When I finally got up, I went through all the regular motions. I took a shave, got washed, had breakfast and checked out.

We had to go the pokémon center as soon as we were done. For a start we needed to get our pokémon healed up by Nurse Joy, having fought hard in the night before they needed some good old fashioned pokémon center style R&R. There was another reason though, Si and I wanted to give one of our old mentors a call on the video phone.

When we got there, the place was pretty quiet. We didn't have to queue for Nurse Joy to tend to our pokémon, so we took the time to give the old man a call.

"You still remember the number?" I asked Si as we walked towards the video phone in the corner.

"Oh yeah. Oh-eight-hundred Oak," he said with the usual Si-style chirpiness.

"That'll do," I grinned.

I punched in the number and the phone began to ring. The blank monitor screen shot to life when the call was answered, Professor Oak's image shot on the screen. He was a medium height man in his fifties with grey-ish hair and dark bushy eyebrows that always had a questioning look to them. He took to wearing a white lab coat and a buttoned red shirt that was always tucked into his tidy pair of beige trousers

"Ah, Tom.. Simon.. It has been a while, how are your journeys in the Antaro region going? Do you still travel with that young man Professor Elm liked to talk about.. Chris was it?" he asked.

Si and I glanced at each other then back to the screen.

"It's good to see you Professor," Si began casually. "I'm afraid Chris isn't all that well at the moment and we thought you wouldn't mind looking after his pokémon until he gets better."

Si had said things tactfully. There was no need to let the Professor know the full extent of the story.

"Oh dear, I hope he gets well soon, but in the mean time I'd be happy to take care of his pokémon. The ranch is very lively these days and I wouldn't mind if some well trained pokémon would help over see it for a while. I'm having a little trouble with an over affectionate Muk that belongs to another trainer from Pallet town," he admitted.

"Well.. Chris caught a Muk before he became ill, maybe this one could distract the other for you," I suggested.

The Professor nodded.

"That might be an idea! Why don't you place them in the PC Box and let the system transfer them over to me," the Professor decided.

Si and put Chris's poke balls in the storage facility. Marowak, Vulpix, Feraligatr, Muk were all placed in the machine before they made the teleportation leap from Antaro to Kanto in less than a minute.

"Now, would you like to take any of your pokémon from the ranch with you boys?" he asked.

I thought for a moment.

"I guess it's about time I trained my Elekid," I supposed aloud.

"I think that would be a good idea. He's becoming a little bit of a bad influence on the other pokémon," the Professor explained a little glumly.

I had to stifle a chuckle. I loved whenever my pokémon were a little roguish. They always made for great companions.

"You should take your Abra too, it doesn't know any other moves than teleport, but I've never seen a sleeping mouse with such energy," the professor joked. "He sometime teleports into the kitchen and steals food whilst sleeping.

I smiled. That was two pokémon I liked the sound of.

"Send them over Professor, I'll make sure I do a good job of looking after them," I replied enthusiastically.

"I think I'm okay for pokémon Professor," Si decided, content with those that he had with them.

"Alright then, I shall just send over Tom's pokémon. Is there anything else I can do for you two?"

"Can you tell us anything about Lugia?" Si asked.

"Lugia? Wow.. I have been hearing a lot about that pokémon in recent years. Ash met a few when he was in Johto and there were rumours of one being seen in Oore. Here, why don't I update your pokédex?" he suggested.

Si and I linked up our pokédex to the computer and allowed the new data to be added to the electronic encyclopaedias.

"Thanks professor. This might come in handy," I said with a soft smile closing the pokédex once the download had completed. "Anyway, we've got a lot to accomplish today, so we better get to it," I explained.

"Alright boys, good luck on your journey. I'll want stadium tickets if you make it to the Antaro League!" the Professor wished merrily.

We both smiled.

"We'll see what we can do," Si said with a smile.

"Bye professor!" Si and I chimed in waving back to the professor over the video phone.

"Goodbye boys!"

With that, the screen went blank again and we went to collect our pokémon. Nurse Joy was as pleasant as she always was and wished as well on our way. It was time to give Elisé a call and go back down to the place where we'd arranged to rent a boat. She seemed on better form than she had been the night before, but there was something still troubling her. I reckoned at this point that she was the type of girl that would come through with the information when she was good and ready. We had enough to deal with such as sailing.

Boat rental was the same as it had gone the day before, but this time we actually managed to rent the boat, forking over all that money Si and I had earned in all the battling. I don't think either of us really had a clue what we were getting ourselves in for.


	7. Chapter 7

-1Ever heard the phrase 'plain sailing'? Two words that mean to going to plan, just as it should. The first two days were exactly that. It was just like reading one of those kids adventure novels, or seeing holiday brochure's with "come sailing!" on them. The weather was beautiful, the wind was in our favour and the engine ran well. It gave us some down time to unwind a little. We actually couldn't understand what the old man who rented the boat out to us was warning us about. Despite the boat being a rickety old sea trawler, it was making great progress. Our pokémon were loving the journey too, Gengar had somehow slipped out before hand and found himself an old Sea Captain's hat and pipe. He liked to buzz around the boat and occasionally mumbled some Pop-eye style mutterings. This caused no end of amusement, and even greater desire for spinach. Scizor used his time out to practice different styles of attack on the top deck alongside Si's Marowak and Blaziken. They could have ran a class for those wanting to learn martial arts. Elisé let her Jolteon out to soak up the rays alongside my Abra who seemed to enjoy nothing but sleeping and teleporting here and there.

We found ourselves worrying a little bit less about Chris on the journey too. We figured that there's only so fast you can get a boat to travel, regardless of how badly you want to get your destination and achieve your aims. We had been granted a new confidence by the speed and success of our travel too.

Maybe the best part of those early days though was the fact Si and I got to see more of who Elisé really was. You put her in a boat and she was confident, in control and knew what she was doing. She took the wheel for most of the journey, issuing orders to Si and myself like she was the trusty skipper. Almost sent her flying off the hotness charts.

By that I mean there's something a little appealing to a girl with a bit of gusto about her, energy. Sure.. I like the cute quiet ones and that's what Elisé could be for a lot of the time, but Si and I got to know her a lot better on that sail and she exposed a little bit of another side of her personality - an excited, confident one. We were singing the odd sea shanty as if we were the pirates and sailors of old. Simon dressed a little like a modern pirate too - he tied his hair in a red bandana and donned a ridiculous pair of white long johns that somehow complimented a black sleeveless t-shirt. I think I was a little guilty of trying to impress Elisé, doing the old "show off the physique" bit. Ya know, bare chest on display, flirting shamelessly with her by demanding she put sun oil on that spots I couldn't quite reach. Admittedly, she always seemed to buying it teasing me and blushing when I made her laugh.

She was cool though, I think she was the only girl who could exchange verses of the obscure poetry I had picked up during my academic career. Wearing some tight white gym shorts and a black t-shirt that happened to get a little tight around her torso whenever it got wet didn't hurt too much either. She was a regular Athena.

So all in all then, yeah, the first two days were great. Then came the trials and tribulations.

To achieve greatness, every great hero needs to undergo a challenge. Maybe what we were about to face was the challenge that made us heroes. Or maybe it was just the way things were meant to be.

It began with storms. Those sunny bright blue skies of hope and innocence changed to a darker grey. Fluffy white clouds rolled into sharp, stinging tendrils of grey, fierce columns that spat out both rain and lightning. The waves that carried us out to sea now tore against us, slamming into the metallic exterior in a successive series of icy walls. It was like nothing any of us had seen before, not even Elisé, the experienced one was prepared for it. It all seemed so unnatural. Of course, we knew storms happened and we were warned against it. And, of course we had heeded the warnings of everyone around us, but part of us didn't want to truly believe the worst. Why would we? We all wanted to believe that we could chase the bird of myths and legends, save Chris and carry on with the rest of our lives. If we had to, we truly believed we could overcome any challenge though. We thought of those artic explorers who went out against all odds, conquering or taming nature's attempts to kill them through hard will and determination. We planned to be like them. This storm though went against even these set of ideals. At times we wondered if we would actually make it through. The boat's engine at times gave signs of struggling and we had to clear the decks of water constantly. The amount of times I spluttered as water invaded my throat is beyond me though. The three of us had only ever witnessed such horrendous weather in movies and T.V. shows, never experienced the first hand.

What made this worse though was the idea that we weren't just fighting against nature, but maybe that somebody else had created these storms. That idea turned out to be more than just an idea very quickly.

What confirmed our suspicions was the appearance of not just one, but three Gyarados. With all three simultaneously hit the boat, we thought it was just the hardest wave we had come across yet. How wrong we were. The force was tremendous that the hull must have been dented quite severely. Luckily the boat didn't spring a leak or have a gaping hole in it. A hole the size of a Gyarados' head would not have been productive to the mission in the slightest.

"How are we going to deal with them? They are huge!" Elise said, clutching hold onto the boat as it lurched on both harsh storm and the impact of the Gyarados. She told no lie; the three water serpents were naturally large, but these ones seemed like they were bigger than usual. Imagine thirty foot long snake like beasts with menacing fish heads that bore long sharp fangs bigger than your arm and you get the right idea. They had scales everywhere and whiskers that protruded like wild tails from their mouths. Not too pretty, I can tell you that much. The way they seemed to work though was unusual. The three of them almost hovered over the boat, keeping only about half of their bodies in the water. What's more is that they worked in a pack, with the biggest one seeming to lead and direct their attacks at the boat.

"Hit them hard electrically. It's the only way we're going to put them down. If they keep hitting the boat, we're," I paused searching for the right word "doomed."

"Alright Captain Melodrama, lets do it," Si said with a sarcastic tone I wasn't too used to hearing. "Spark up, Raichu!" he yelled with conviction, tossing down a ball from his belt. It sprang open to let the three foot yellow rat out. When Raichu emerged, she stood with two feet on the boat and began growling. As she did, electricity crackled from circular parts on her cheeks. It was about to drop the thunderbolt bomb.

"The one on the right, Raichu!" Si urged. The big brown rat faced its watery opponent and let rip with a surge of electricity, forked from spots on each of its cheek. The jagged bolt arched and encompassed the Gyarados, sizzling against its scales. A hiss of steam drafted into the air and the water pokémon seized in shock. To the left of it the larger water pokémon growled. As if in response, the electric sticken one snapped out of its agony and curled its snake-like body, shaking off an attack that should have put it in an unconscious state.

"Jolteon, hit the one on the left flank with a thunder attack!" Elisé directed. Left flank? Since when did she battle pokémon like a military strategist?

The yellow dog-like creature shook its jagged fur and looked to the sky. A dark clowd began floating closer and closer to the boat, darkening the sky around as it did. Eventually it came to hover over the Gyarados' head and a rumble erupted that would surround all of us, almost deafen us with the bass of a Prodigy concert. Sadly, we weren't on hard drugs that evening and the music was wasted on us. The lights display wasn't too bad. I particularly enjoyed the part where this crooked and piercing bolt of lightning struck one of the smaller Gyarados' spine, making it seize in shock. The middle one began to growl as if it were issuing orders, or making encouraging noises.

It hit me almost instinctively what was going on. The water serpents were almost as smart as we were.

"Gengro, get here and thunder bolt attack the middle one," I yelled with insistence, with my head looking over my shoulder. The ghost drifted to the front of the boat and blinked. A second later, it glowed with a yellow around its body. A blast of electricity curled from its gaseous form and struck the Gyarados with hundreds of volts. The serpent did not react well; as the other two continued to attack the hull of the boat with their heads, it paused as if to inhale the air around us.

Si, Elisé and I took a quick step back, as it exhaled a harsh, flaming gas; a dragon rage attack. One that struck all three of our pokémon, causing them to wince before a thick acidic gas emerged from where they stood. What remained were some slightly scarred pokémon, some burn marks on the deck and a viscous dark residue.

"Jolteon, again, this time on the middle one!" Elisé urged. She had figured it out too. The Gyarados in the middle was acting as a leader, perhaps the alpha male of its school.

The dog-like beast, shook once again, repeating its attack and causing the weather attacks as it had done before. This time the lightning bolt connected with the Gyarados in the centre forward position. As it winced once again, Si made his decision.

"Ultra ball, go!" he cheered, tossing a large purple ball from his hoody pocket towards the serpent. It snapped open and dropped towards the edge of the boat deck. The ball rolled and coated itself in the residue, shook twice and snapped open again, letting the serpent re-emerge ready to attack again.

"Si, send out Starraptor," I said quickly. He issued out the bird upon the deck from its spherical container. I hopped to mount the bird before it could call out its name as a greeting.

"Fly up high, Starraptor get me as close to that middle one as possible," I said as if a whisper to the bird's head. The bird flapped its wings once and shot upwards just behind the sea serpent's head. "Gengro, thunderbolt again!"

The ghost ignited the same attack as it had done previously and made contact with a sharp velocity. The Gyarados tried to let outs it attack, but this time it was caught off guard and the attack came to a haphazard ending, dissipating in the water on either side of the boat.

I leapt up off the bird and landed with my legs around the neck of the alpha-male Gyarados. Grabbing a great ball from my belt I slammed it in to the head of the beast, a red illumination from the ball surrounded the creature and sucked it in. I dropped to the planks of the deck, my feet narrowly giving way as my knees buckled beneath me. I pressed my hands down on the ball with all my might. Every ounce of strength in my arms was used in the fight to keep the water pokémon from escaping, at full strength, I would never have had a chance. In its weakened state, the weight of my physical force made all the difference in keeping the ball shut. It rolled within my hands three times before it stopped. I let out a victorious sigh of relief. I was their new alpha male.

"Give yourselves up, you know you cannot win," I said with conviction towards the two remaining Gyarados who were still battering the boat with their heads. They immediately paused and bow their heads, as if honouring us for our victory.

Si and Elisé both stood towards the beasts with an ultra ball in hand, capturing one each without any further struggle.

"I swear, I hope that is the worst experience we'll experience on this trip, otherwise Chris owes us big time," Si said with a pant that would catch his breath. I nodded and smiled in agreement. That had been a harsh one for our pokémon at least, all three of us tended to them with bottles of potions and various other healing supplements we'd picked up before we left. Our pokémon were to be treated with respect.

"If we can get past this storm, we should stop and rest a while.. Maybe two people should keep watch over the boat as the other two sleep," Elisé suggested. She had a point, bags around my eyes were starting to appear, a drowsiness in my body had been building.

"I call first watch," I said. "I want an undisturbed sleep."

"I'm cool with that," Si declared. "I'll take second or third, it's up to you," he said in his usual relaxed and easy going way to Elisé.

"Third if I can," Elisé replied. "I can see what Tom means."

We carried on sailing as a group for a little while, then the others retired to some makeshift beds beneath deck. I was left to man the boat and keep watch that in the cold darkness of the night, we were safe.

Around two and a half hours later, Si woke to his alarm and came above deck to relieve me of my duties.

"Dude.. I feel like a stalker," he confessed to me in a kind of passive-sighing tone.

"How do you mean?" I asked him curiously. I couldn't think of what would be bugging him.

"Elisé.. She's special man, when I woke up. I watched her sleep for a little bit. I don't want to become obsessed or besotted or something with her," he admitted, his face looking somewhat dopey.

I smiled a little and chuckled.

"Awww.. Is little Si-mon fawwing in love?" I asked him with a smile and pinched a cheek of his like an irritating old aunt.

"Hey hey.." he said with a chuckle. "We couldn't have met at worse times.. Could we?"

I shrugged a little.

"I don't know man, maybe this is one of those cloud with the silver lining things. Chris took a hit for the team, so you could meet the darling Elisé," I said happily prophetic. I think at that point I had a certain sureness that we were going to make sure Chris would turn alright.

"I suppose. There's one other thing bugging me," he said begrudgingly.

"Yeah? Go on.."

"I've seen the way you two are, I think she likes you. Are the feelings mutual?"

I stopped and had to think for a moment. Did I? She seemed really cool, fun, energetic and pretty damn hot. She was a lot of things alright. Just with the odd flaw.

"I-I don't know man. Met her in a bar or a club, I'd have tried to get her number for sure. Maybe see where it went. I'm not really thinking too hard about women for a while though, once we get Chris out of this mess, it'll be back to battling, drinking and partying. Besides, you sound like you really like her and I got the last one, so I think it's your turn," I decided.

"So I can pursue her without you trying anything?" Si asked.

"Gentleman's agreement," I said putting out my hand. We'd had those gentleman's agreements before. They often were a way of keeping the peace between us, whenever all three of us wanted to pursue the same girl. I think the gangster term for it was "bros before hoes". We weren't to fall out over any girl, no matter how gorgeous and charming she might have been.

Si shook my head and the deal was done. I'd done it so haphazardly, I failed to think of what we were agreeing to, or that I'd break my promise, even by accident.

"On that note, I'm going off to get my four hours kip, sound good with you?" I asked genially.

"Go and do it, it's about time somebody sorted out those ugly bags under your eyes," Si teased. "Gengro will keep me company for sure," he said giving a nod to the ghostly pokémon

I headed off to the space under deck and crawled up in a sleeping bag. I closed my eyes and drifted off to a light sleep.

--

"I didn't chose to be in your dreams, but as you sleep, I sleep and through projection, my mind is with yours. I think it is best you took heed of a few words of advice.." the voice beckoned. It was -that- fucking voice again, of that guy Kanos, who I battled only a while ago.

"Really?" I asked, somehow having control of my voice despite my unconscious state. Maybe this was one of those lucid dreams. "What makes you think you can give me advice, you've met me only once."

"Because things will end very badly for you if you continue on your course. I have an interest in that pokémon you are seeking to find. Believe me, when I seek something, there is not any step I will not take to find it," the voice explained.

"So kill me then," I beckoned. "Because by the sounds of things, we're a little too similar, I don't have the option of failing to find what I seek. So go on, do it now. If you can get into my mind to tell me something, then you can probably turn off my mind entirely. I dare you, I double dare you to do it," I insisted.

The voice let out a sigh. "If only it worked like that. I'd be the most powerful man alive. Able to kill anybody I wanted whilst I slept. Brilliant," Kanos said with a crude sarcastic tint to his voice. "You are right about one thing though, you and I are very similar boy. Despite the fact you want to think of yourself as a man, that is exactly what you are. Yet if you are so adamant in your words, then I will have to kill you. And your friends," the voice concluded.

--

Right after that, I woke to the sound of crying. It was a series of quiet, stifled sniffles, but I knew exactly who's they were. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and walked up deck, sneaking past Si so as not to disturb him as he slept.

"Elisé.. What's wrong?" I asked quietly, looking at her face, now red and puffy from tears.

"N-nothing," she whispered, her pretty eyes filled with both tears and sorrow.

"You and I both know you don't cry for no reason," I said coming to put a hand on her face to brush away a tear. "Just tell me what's wrong and we can sort it out."

"When I said before that it is my fault, I really meant it. I've been holding back from telling you something.." Elisé whispered through a tear. "I told you lies about my family.. About my father. About that murderer.." she went on.

The last thing I wanted to hear about was that murderer. I breathed deeply, the dream had unsettled me enough as it was.

"That man was your father?" I questioned, looking out to see so as to avoid eye contact with Elisé. I didn't want to look at her for that moment.

She shook her head.

"Far from it. My father was a trainer, just like you. Three years ago, he was taking the Elite Four challenge. He'd almost got through Victory Road whenever a trap was set for him. That bastard couldn't handle the fact my Father would have trounced him. All he cared about was power, his reputation.. Being unbeaten. I'm surprised he took the fact you beat him so well," she finished as a gasp, almost as if ready to collapse.

I put my arms around her to comfort her. She looked and sounded like she needed comfort, so I guess that's what I was giving her.

"That doesn't make any of this your fault, what that murderer had with your father didn't put Chris in hospital. It was an accident that he put himself into," I explained, trying to give the best advice I could.

"No.. the thing is.. I went looking for Kanos, only a few days ago. I don't know if I was going for revenge, or to see what he was doing, but I just felt compelled to spy on him, to get close to him.. To know that I could.." Elisé began. "It meant that I drove around this place where he was.. I don't know what it was - it was like a car impound, but it seemed to have all sorts of tests being conducted.. Pokémon that did not look healthy - mutated even. It was all kinds of evil science."

I hated whenever people tested things on pokémon. I always felt that they shouldn't have to endure pain for the cause of people. I'd do medical research if they wanted people to have drugs tested on them. That was fine, my own health for the good of humanity. Alright it was good money, but it did some good.

"Go on.." I insisted.

"That toxin in Chris's bloodstream.. Probably came off the car because of where I was. I was driving too fast because I felt like somebody was following me from where I had been. That's what makes it my fault," she finally finished.

I pulled her tighter to me, she felt frail as if her entire body was going to shatter into pieces.

"Maybe there is more of a purpose of us going on this journey," I whispered into her ear, the words were almost instinctual; I hadn't even thought about what I was saying. "Whilst I slept, Kanos spoke to me in a dream. He is after Lugia just like we are. I don't know why. Maybe he has it in in some scheme of his involving those tests," I went on. "Maybe somebody is testing us.. Wanting us to fight for this purpose."

"You think that could be the case?" she asked sounding kind of awkward.

"I don't now what to think or believe any more," I admitted. "But maybe this is what it comes down to," I said, finally bringing myself to look into her blue eyes, to reassure her.

"I think you could be right," she finally said in a relaxed sigh, her gaze meeting mine, the tears finally replaced with a small soft smile.

"I'm glad you do," I whispered. At that point, we felt drawn to one another, like our lips should meet. There was no concern over past or future, only the moment, only the now.

An inch before a kiss, a voice interrupted that moment.

"Couldn't even last three fucking hours, so much for that agreement.."

Before I could turn to apologize to Si's, I heard another voice. It wasn't that of a human's, or of a pokémon though. This voice was that of gun fire. The next thing I felt was a hot sharp pain in my stomach. My body seized and then I heard that voice speak again. As the bullet ripped through my chest, my vision blurred until I could see no more..


	8. Chapter 8

-1Ever heard the phrase 'plain sailing'? Two words that mean to going to plan, just as it should. The first two days were exactly that. It was just like reading one of those kids adventure novels, or seeing holiday brochure's with "come sailing!" on them. The weather was beautiful, the wind was in our favour and the engine ran well. It gave us some down time to unwind a little. We actually couldn't understand what the old man who rented the boat out to us was warning us about. Despite the boat being a rickety old sea trawler, it was making great progress. Our pokémon were loving the journey too, Gengar had somehow slipped out before hand and found himself an old Sea Captain's hat and pipe. He liked to buzz around the boat and occasionally mumbled some Pop-eye style mutterings. This caused no end of amusement, and even greater desire for spinach. Scizor used his time out to practice different styles of attack on the top deck alongside Si's Marowak and Blaziken. They could have ran a class for those wanting to learn martial arts. Elisé let her Jolteon out to soak up the rays alongside my Abra who seemed to enjoy nothing but sleeping and teleporting here and there.

We found ourselves worrying a little bit less about Chris on the journey too. We figured that there's only so fast you can get a boat to travel, regardless of how badly you want to get your destination and achieve your aims. We had been granted a new confidence by the speed and success of our travel too.

Maybe the best part of those early days though was the fact Si and I got to see more of who Elisé really was. You put her in a boat and she was confident, in control and knew what she was doing. She took the wheel for most of the journey, issuing orders to Si and myself like she was the trusty skipper. Almost sent her flying off the hotness charts.

By that I mean there's something a little appealing to a girl with a bit of gusto about her, energy. Sure.. I like the cute quiet ones and that's what Elisé could be for a lot of the time, but Si and I got to know her a lot better on that sail and she exposed a little bit of another side of her personality - an excited, confident one. We were singing the odd sea shanty as if we were the pirates and sailors of old. Simon dressed a little like a modern pirate too - he tied his hair in a red bandana and donned a ridiculous pair of white long johns that somehow complimented a black sleeveless t-shirt. I think I was a little guilty of trying to impress Elisé, doing the old "show off the physique" bit. Ya know, bare chest on display, flirting shamelessly with her by demanding she put sun oil on that spots I couldn't quite reach. Admittedly, she always seemed to buying it teasing me and blushing when I made her laugh.

She was cool though, I think she was the only girl who could exchange verses of the obscure poetry I had picked up during my academic career. Wearing some tight white gym shorts and a black t-shirt that happened to get a little tight around her torso whenever it got wet didn't hurt too much either. She was a regular Athena.

So all in all then, yeah, the first two days were great. Then came the trials and tribulations.

To achieve greatness, every great hero needs to undergo a challenge. Maybe what we were about to face was the challenge that made us heroes. Or maybe it was just the way things were meant to be.

It began with storms. Those sunny bright blue skies of hope and innocence changed to a darker grey. Fluffy white clouds rolled into sharp, stinging tendrils of grey, fierce columns that spat out both rain and lightning. The waves that carried us out to sea now tore against us, slamming into the metallic exterior in a successive series of icy walls. It was like nothing any of us had seen before, not even Elisé, the experienced one was prepared for it. It all seemed so unnatural. Of course, we knew storms happened and we were warned against it. And, of course we had heeded the warnings of everyone around us, but part of us didn't want to truly believe the worst. Why would we? We all wanted to believe that we could chase the bird of myths and legends, save Chris and carry on with the rest of our lives. If we had to, we truly believed we could overcome any challenge though. We thought of those artic explorers who went out against all odds, conquering or taming nature's attempts to kill them through hard will and determination. We planned to be like them. This storm though went against even these set of ideals. At times we wondered if we would actually make it through. The boat's engine at times gave signs of struggling and we had to clear the decks of water constantly. The amount of times I spluttered as water invaded my throat is beyond me though. The three of us had only ever witnessed such horrendous weather in movies and T.V. shows, never experienced the first hand.

What made this worse though was the idea that we weren't just fighting against nature, but maybe that somebody else had created these storms. That idea turned out to be more than just an idea very quickly.

What confirmed our suspicions was the appearance of not just one, but three Gyarados. With all three simultaneously hit the boat, we thought it was just the hardest wave we had come across yet. How wrong we were. The force was tremendous that the hull must have been dented quite severely. Luckily the boat didn't spring a leak or have a gaping hole in it. A hole the size of a Gyarados' head would not have been productive to the mission in the slightest.

"How are we going to deal with them? They are huge!" Elise said, clutching hold onto the boat as it lurched on both harsh storm and the impact of the Gyarados. She told no lie; the three water serpents were naturally large, but these ones seemed like they were bigger than usual. Imagine thirty foot long snake like beasts with menacing fish heads that bore long sharp fangs bigger than your arm and you get the right idea. They had scales everywhere and whiskers that protruded like wild tails from their mouths. Not too pretty, I can tell you that much. The way they seemed to work though was unusual. The three of them almost hovered over the boat, keeping only about half of their bodies in the water. What's more is that they worked in a pack, with the biggest one seeming to lead and direct their attacks at the boat.

"Hit them hard electrically. It's the only way we're going to put them down. If they keep hitting the boat, we're," I paused searching for the right word "doomed."

"Alright Captain Melodrama, lets do it," Si said with a sarcastic tone I wasn't too used to hearing. "Spark up, Raichu!" he yelled with conviction, tossing down a ball from his belt. It sprang open to let the three foot yellow rat out. When Raichu emerged, she stood with two feet on the boat and began growling. As she did, electricity crackled from circular parts on her cheeks. It was about to drop the thunderbolt bomb.

"The one on the right, Raichu!" Si urged. The big brown rat faced its watery opponent and let rip with a surge of electricity, forked from spots on each of its cheek. The jagged bolt arched and encompassed the Gyarados, sizzling against its scales. A hiss of steam drafted into the air and the water pokémon seized in shock. To the left of it the larger water pokémon growled. As if in response, the electric sticken one snapped out of its agony and curled its snake-like body, shaking off an attack that should have put it in an unconscious state.

"Jolteon, hit the one on the left flank with a thunder attack!" Elisé directed. Left flank? Since when did she battle pokémon like a military strategist?

The yellow dog-like creature shook its jagged fur and looked to the sky. A dark clowd began floating closer and closer to the boat, darkening the sky around as it did. Eventually it came to hover over the Gyarados' head and a rumble erupted that would surround all of us, almost deafen us with the bass of a Prodigy concert. Sadly, we weren't on hard drugs that evening and the music was wasted on us. The lights display wasn't too bad. I particularly enjoyed the part where this crooked and piercing bolt of lightning struck one of the smaller Gyarados' spine, making it seize in shock. The middle one began to growl as if it were issuing orders, or making encouraging noises.

It hit me almost instinctively what was going on. The water serpents were almost as smart as we were.

"Gengro, get here and thunder bolt attack the middle one," I yelled with insistence, with my head looking over my shoulder. The ghost drifted to the front of the boat and blinked. A second later, it glowed with a yellow around its body. A blast of electricity curled from its gaseous form and struck the Gyarados with hundreds of volts. The serpent did not react well; as the other two continued to attack the hull of the boat with their heads, it paused as if to inhale the air around us.

Si, Elisé and I took a quick step back, as it exhaled a harsh, flaming gas; a dragon rage attack. One that struck all three of our pokémon, causing them to wince before a thick acidic gas emerged from where they stood. What remained were some slightly scarred pokémon, some burn marks on the deck and a viscous dark residue.

"Jolteon, again, this time on the middle one!" Elisé urged. She had figured it out too. The Gyarados in the middle was acting as a leader, perhaps the alpha male of its school.

The dog-like beast, shook once again, repeating its attack and causing the weather attacks as it had done before. This time the lightning bolt connected with the Gyarados in the centre forward position. As it winced once again, Si made his decision.

"Ultra ball, go!" he cheered, tossing a large purple ball from his hoody pocket towards the serpent. It snapped open and dropped towards the edge of the boat deck. The ball rolled and coated itself in the residue, shook twice and snapped open again, letting the serpent re-emerge ready to attack again.

"Si, send out Starraptor," I said quickly. He issued out the bird upon the deck from its spherical container. I hopped to mount the bird before it could call out its name as a greeting.

"Fly up high, Starraptor get me as close to that middle one as possible," I said as if a whisper to the bird's head. The bird flapped its wings once and shot upwards just behind the sea serpent's head. "Gengro, thunderbolt again!"

The ghost ignited the same attack as it had done previously and made contact with a sharp velocity. The Gyarados tried to let outs it attack, but this time it was caught off guard and the attack came to a haphazard ending, dissipating in the water on either side of the boat.

I leapt up off the bird and landed with my legs around the neck of the alpha-male Gyarados. Grabbing a great ball from my belt I slammed it in to the head of the beast, a red illumination from the ball surrounded the creature and sucked it in. I dropped to the planks of the deck, my feet narrowly giving way as my knees buckled beneath me. I pressed my hands down on the ball with all my might. Every ounce of strength in my arms was used in the fight to keep the water pokémon from escaping, at full strength, I would never have had a chance. In its weakened state, the weight of my physical force made all the difference in keeping the ball shut. It rolled within my hands three times before it stopped. I let out a victorious sigh of relief. I was their new alpha male.

"Give yourselves up, you know you cannot win," I said with conviction towards the two remaining Gyarados who were still battering the boat with their heads. They immediately paused and bow their heads, as if honouring us for our victory.

Si and Elisé both stood towards the beasts with an ultra ball in hand, capturing one each without any further struggle.

"I swear, I hope that is the worst experience we'll experience on this trip, otherwise Chris owes us big time," Si said with a pant that would catch his breath. I nodded and smiled in agreement. That had been a harsh one for our pokémon at least, all three of us tended to them with bottles of potions and various other healing supplements we'd picked up before we left. Our pokémon were to be treated with respect.

"If we can get past this storm, we should stop and rest a while.. Maybe two people should keep watch over the boat as the other two sleep," Elisé suggested. She had a point, bags around my eyes were starting to appear, a drowsiness in my body had been building.

"I call first watch," I said. "I want an undisturbed sleep."

"I'm cool with that," Si declared. "I'll take second or third, it's up to you," he said in his usual relaxed and easy going way to Elisé.

"Third if I can," Elisé replied. "I can see what Tom means."

We carried on sailing as a group for a little while, then the others retired to some makeshift beds beneath deck. I was left to man the boat and keep watch that in the cold darkness of the night, we were safe.

Around two and a half hours later, Si woke to his alarm and came above deck to relieve me of my duties.

"Dude.. I feel like a stalker," he confessed to me in a kind of passive-sighing tone.

"How do you mean?" I asked him curiously. I couldn't think of what would be bugging him.

"Elisé.. She's special man, when I woke up. I watched her sleep for a little bit. I don't want to become obsessed or besotted or something with her," he admitted, his face looking somewhat dopey.

I smiled a little and chuckled.

"Awww.. Is little Si-mon fawwing in love?" I asked him with a smile and pinched a cheek of his like an irritating old aunt.

"Hey hey.." he said with a chuckle. "We couldn't have met at worse times.. Could we?"

I shrugged a little.

"I don't know man, maybe this is one of those cloud with the silver lining things. Chris took a hit for the team, so you could meet the darling Elisé," I said happily prophetic. I think at that point I had a certain sureness that we were going to make sure Chris would turn alright.

"I suppose. There's one other thing bugging me," he said begrudgingly.

"Yeah? Go on.."

"I've seen the way you two are, I think she likes you. Are the feelings mutual?"

I stopped and had to think for a moment. Did I? She seemed really cool, fun, energetic and pretty damn hot. She was a lot of things alright. Just with the odd flaw.

"I-I don't know man. Met her in a bar or a club, I'd have tried to get her number for sure. Maybe see where it went. I'm not really thinking too hard about women for a while though, once we get Chris out of this mess, it'll be back to battling, drinking and partying. Besides, you sound like you really like her and I got the last one, so I think it's your turn," I decided.

"So I can pursue her without you trying anything?" Si asked.

"Gentleman's agreement," I said putting out my hand. We'd had those gentleman's agreements before. They often were a way of keeping the peace between us, whenever all three of us wanted to pursue the same girl. I think the gangster term for it was "bros before hoes". We weren't to fall out over any girl, no matter how gorgeous and charming she might have been.

Si shook my head and the deal was done. I'd done it so haphazardly, I failed to think of what we were agreeing to, or that I'd break my promise, even by accident.

"On that note, I'm going off to get my four hours kip, sound good with you?" I asked genially.

"Go and do it, it's about time somebody sorted out those ugly bags under your eyes," Si teased. "Gengro will keep me company for sure," he said giving a nod to the ghostly pokémon

I headed off to the space under deck and crawled up in a sleeping bag. I closed my eyes and drifted off to a light sleep.

--

"I didn't chose to be in your dreams, but as you sleep, I sleep and through projection, my mind is with yours. I think it is best you took heed of a few words of advice.." the voice beckoned. It was -that- fucking voice again, of that guy Kanos, who I battled only a while ago.

"Really?" I asked, somehow having control of my voice despite my unconscious state. Maybe this was one of those lucid dreams. "What makes you think you can give me advice, you've met me only once."

"Because things will end very badly for you if you continue on your course. I have an interest in that pokémon you are seeking to find. Believe me, when I seek something, there is not any step I will not take to find it," the voice explained.

"So kill me then," I beckoned. "Because by the sounds of things, we're a little too similar, I don't have the option of failing to find what I seek. So go on, do it now. If you can get into my mind to tell me something, then you can probably turn off my mind entirely. I dare you, I double dare you to do it," I insisted.

The voice let out a sigh. "If only it worked like that. I'd be the most powerful man alive. Able to kill anybody I wanted whilst I slept. Brilliant," Kanos said with a crude sarcastic tint to his voice. "You are right about one thing though, you and I are very similar boy. Despite the fact you want to think of yourself as a man, that is exactly what you are. Yet if you are so adamant in your words, then I will have to kill you. And your friends," the voice concluded.

--

Right after that, I woke to the sound of crying. It was a series of quiet, stifled sniffles, but I knew exactly who's they were. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and walked up deck, sneaking past Si so as not to disturb him as he slept.

"Elisé.. What's wrong?" I asked quietly, looking at her face, now red and puffy from tears.

"N-nothing," she whispered, her pretty eyes filled with both tears and sorrow.

"You and I both know you don't cry for no reason," I said coming to put a hand on her face to brush away a tear. "Just tell me what's wrong and we can sort it out."

"When I said before that it is my fault, I really meant it. I've been holding back from telling you something.." Elisé whispered through a tear. "I told you lies about my family.. About my father. About that murderer.." she went on.

The last thing I wanted to hear about was that murderer. I breathed deeply, the dream had unsettled me enough as it was.

"That man was your father?" I questioned, looking out to see so as to avoid eye contact with Elisé. I didn't want to look at her for that moment.

She shook her head.

"Far from it. My father was a trainer, just like you. Three years ago, he was taking the Elite Four challenge. He'd almost got through Victory Road whenever a trap was set for him. That bastard couldn't handle the fact my Father would have trounced him. All he cared about was power, his reputation.. Being unbeaten. I'm surprised he took the fact you beat him so well," she finished as a gasp, almost as if ready to collapse.

I put my arms around her to comfort her. She looked and sounded like she needed comfort, so I guess that's what I was giving her.

"That doesn't make any of this your fault, what that murderer had with your father didn't put Chris in hospital. It was an accident that he put himself into," I explained, trying to give the best advice I could.

"No.. the thing is.. I went looking for Kanos, only a few days ago. I don't know if I was going for revenge, or to see what he was doing, but I just felt compelled to spy on him, to get close to him.. To know that I could.." Elisé began. "It meant that I drove around this place where he was.. I don't know what it was - it was like a car impound, but it seemed to have all sorts of tests being conducted.. Pokémon that did not look healthy - mutated even. It was all kinds of evil science."

I hated whenever people tested things on pokémon. I always felt that they shouldn't have to endure pain for the cause of people. I'd do medical research if they wanted people to have drugs tested on them. That was fine, my own health for the good of humanity. Alright it was good money, but it did some good.

"Go on.." I insisted.

"That toxin in Chris's bloodstream.. Probably came off the car because of where I was. I was driving too fast because I felt like somebody was following me from where I had been. That's what makes it my fault," she finally finished.

I pulled her tighter to me, she felt frail as if her entire body was going to shatter into pieces.

"Maybe there is more of a purpose of us going on this journey," I whispered into her ear, the words were almost instinctual; I hadn't even thought about what I was saying. "Whilst I slept, Kanos spoke to me in a dream. He is after Lugia just like we are. I don't know why. Maybe he has it in in some scheme of his involving those tests," I went on. "Maybe somebody is testing us.. Wanting us to fight for this purpose."

"You think that could be the case?" she asked sounding kind of awkward.

"I don't now what to think or believe any more," I admitted. "But maybe this is what it comes down to," I said, finally bringing myself to look into her blue eyes, to reassure her.

"I think you could be right," she finally said in a relaxed sigh, her gaze meeting mine, the tears finally replaced with a small soft smile.

"I'm glad you do," I whispered. At that point, we felt drawn to one another, like our lips should meet. There was no concern over past or future, only the moment, only the now.

An inch before a kiss, a voice interrupted that moment.

"Couldn't even last three fucking hours, so much for that agreement.."

Before I could turn to apologize to Si's, I heard another voice. It wasn't that of a human's, or of a pokémon though. This voice was that of gun fire. The next thing I felt was a hot sharp pain in my stomach. My body seized and then I heard that voice speak again. As the bullet ripped through my chest, my vision blurred until I could see no more..


	9. Chapter 9

-1--

"See, I told you I'd have you killed. You and your friends are just lying there in an unconscious state as the trauma to your organs does the damage. All the while your blood seeping from the bullet holes."

"Why do I get the feeling you were going to kill me anyway?" I asked in a really apathetic way.

"Because I am going to kill everybody.. All with the mind, all with the fire.."

--

I don't know what hit me first, the shock and heat of a hot scalpel tear through my skin, or the smell of searing flesh wafting upwards around my nose.

"AAAAAARRRRRRGHHHHHH!" I yelped, my whole body seizing in shock as the blade worked it's way around the bullet wound in my chest. I felt like shit. But seriously - it was heinous. I wanted to shy away from the blade, I wanted to face Kanos in my dreams again, I just didn't want to be awake.

I looked up and there in my blurred vision was probably the person I least expected but was most glad to see. The girl with the craziest four pony tails of the most beautiful red hair you're ever likely to see. The girl with the cutest face and the most delicious figure you could ever dream of. Lavaridge town's very own gym leader, Flannery Hopkins - holding a pair of pliers with a piece of fabric torn around a piece of lead that had come straight out of my chest between them.

A sweet thing to see before my vision blurred again and I collapsed into an unconscious state again, passed out in sand.

For once, I don't remember any of my dreams for that brief period of unconsciousness, though I'm pretty sure those giant lizards were battling it out again, for no reason other than to wreck an entire city and somehow, when I came to it wasn't in a wooden box. I was lying flat on my back, wearing what was now a very ripped previously shirt (previously coloured blue but now caked in dried blood) and a pair of jeans torn to a state less than cut offs.

The boat was beached, a gaping hole in the middle of its hull, slowly dripping oil onto the beach. Bits and pieces of debris were scattered around the boat. 'Well, there goes our deposit,' I thought to myself for a moment, shrugging it off as I thought again about the matter of the moment.

I ran a hand across my abdomen. It wasn't a scar I was feeling, but several inches of bandages wrapped around my stomach. I wasn't in any kind of pain and it almost seemed like I hadn't been shot at all. I pulled open my shirt a little and looked at the right side of my torso. Once again, where the bullet had been there was a larger plaster probably covering up some stitches.

"What the hell?" I thought out aloud, before just about remembering what I had seen before I had passed out for the second time.

I came to sit up to gaze at the scene. Almost immediately, I dropped back onto my back. The pain shooting through my torso was agonizing. Seemed I must have been slightly sedated for the wounds to be patched up. I lay back on my back, just gazing up at the sky, trying not to think of the pain. It was a nice clear blue sky, a couple of clouds but generally the kind of sky you only ever see in brochures in travel agents, advertising. Alongside those fluffy white clouds, I could see the black form of a Starraptor, gliding effortlessly through the air. I couldn't admire the sights for long though, the pain was cutting through me like a knife, distracting my attentions to my abdomen.

"You are your power pokémon," I thought to myself for a moment. I clenched my eyes closed and pictured myself an Emperor Empoleon. Those things surely can't feel pain - they're all water and steel. Bullets would just ricochet off of their exterior.

"Ahhh," I gasped, biting on my lip.

"How you feeling soldier?" Flannery asked me, coming to crouch before my head, playing with my hair and looking down into my eyes.

"Been better. I mean for a start, I have to stare up into your big brown eyes," I said teasingly, through a gasp.

"Careful now, I could quite easily take those bandages off you, you're not looking too strong," she said teasingly. "I think you better rest up for a little bit, I'm surprised you're in such a good state. Two bullets of 5.56 mm calibre, that's an assault rifle. By all means, you should have died in a matter of minutes," she said sounding slightly exasperated. "I always thought you were special," she said with a giggle before giving me a swift peck on the lips.

"I think you oughta be careful," I said with a smile. "I got shot in the chest and my heart might not be doing so well," I whispered teasingly. "How come you not only got those bullets out but knew so much about them?" I quizzed, kind of curious at this point. I was still thinking in terms of an Empoleon, just sleeping in my very own palace made out of ice. It felt so much better than facing the reality of knowing I had been shot twice only hours before. I felt detached from reality, yet I was letting myself engage with it

"I thought I told you, my Father served alongside Lieutenant Surge in the army, he was the field medic of the unit. He taught me a few things before he went off on deployment. Including basic surgery, popping bullets out of chests and sealing up the wound," she began. "I sprayed a little bit of a modified potion formula on your wounds then went to work. Some how though your wounds were almost healing by themselves. You had all the symptoms of a dying person, you just weren't dying. I had to give you some CPR and mouth to mouth to keep you going, then your body just started taking over. Are you secretly a cheerleader?" she asked with a teasing grin.

I chuckled. She'd been watching too much television.

"Well that doesn't make any sense," I admitted. "Here's hoping the government doesn't find out and decide it'd be a good idea to graft metal to my skeleton," I joked. "Still hurts like hell though, I could do with some drugs.." I mused "Care to tell me where the other two are and how we got here? More importantly, what brings you here?" I quizzed in a non-chalant tone, bringing another cheeky smirk to my lips.

"Well, to answer your first question, I sent the other two off to get some firewood, it'll be night fall soon. To answer your second, I think something must have happened to your boat and something dragged you here, hence the dragon sized foot prints in the sand," she explained, smiling down at me, stroking my face with her finger tips as she did. "As for me being here, it's a long story.. I think you better hear it though," she began, clearing her throat.

I nodded, deciding to continue resting myself where I lay.

"Just before you do, are Si and Elisé okay? And our pokémon?" I asked, knowing that they were away collecting firewood but unsure of their general health.

"Your pokémon are fine. You can't see him because you're staring into my eyes, but your Marshtomp looks like he has never been happier, splashing around the edge of the water. That little mouse that looks like it's sleeping all the time.. He's jumping around by way of teleport around like a six year old with ADHD," she explained cheekily. "As for Gengro, he looks like he's trying to teach that new Elekid of yours some manners. He's about as badly behaved as you are," she said leaning to give me a tender kiss on the lips.

I reciprocated as best I could from my position, it was nice, but I got a little bit of a shooting pain in my chest as she kissed.

"Woah, woah.. The heart.. The heart" I said, catching my breath mid-kiss.

"What are we going to do with you? First of all you get shot, then you can't kiss," she said teasingly.

I smiled again, it would have been worth the pain just to kiss her again. I was surprised she was so eager to see me. Girls like Elisé don't stay single for long.

"Anyway, Si and that girl…" she said with a pause. She must have noticed something, how she might have acted around me, I wasn't so sure. Whilst Elisé and I had almost kissed, being around Flannery kind of put things in to perspective. I wasn't in any state to decide which girl I liked more, but I was still with it to recall I had made an agreement with Simon and that I should stick to my words. "They didn't get shot like you. I think they were smart enough to take cover and the worst they got was a mild concussion whenever the boat incurred damage. Both of them blacked out as well, but I reckon it had been a grenade or a rocket or something tearing fired from a boat along side you," she suggested. "I don't know who fired it though. There's someone coming after you, isn't there?"

I nodded again, my head rubbing against the sand.

"A guy called Kanos, a murdering member of this region's Elite Four. He's after the same thing we're after.." I sighed

"A Lugia?" Flannery finished my sentence curiously.

"How did you know?" I asked, completely unsure of how she would.

"Well.. You made it to the Whirlpool Islands didn't you?" Flannery asked with a little smile. Sure we did, despite the fact we could have been anywhere, I knew instinctively where we were. "Well there's kind of a long story as to why I'm here," Flannery began. "A few months after you left Hoenn, I felt drawn to come to Johto. Something in my dreams was calling me here. I didn't know what it was until I came to this really old town called Ecruteak. Something was calling me upwards, so I began climbing. I didn't know what it was until I finally reached the top. Ever heard of a Ho-oh?" she asked.

"No, but I figure it's a pokémon and you're going to tell me more about it," I said dryly with a sly smile.

"Correct answer, Tom," she said coming to sit down beside me. "Ho-oh is a legendary pokémon, just like Lugia. Except instead of being part psychic, instead it's part fire. Ho-oh is very powerful. It was capable of resurrecting three legendary dog pokémon; Suicune, Raikou and Entei. A trainer could go through most of life without losing a battle if they had one in their possession. That's just to start, who knows what damage they could really do," she continued. "The problem is, this Ho-oh was old, its offspring had soared off somewhere else. For survival of the species, they couldn't risk bunching up so much - they'd be sitting ducks. It had to go one step further when protecting itself, so it chose two guardians; one human, one pokémon. It chose me to be its human guardian," she said pausing to catch her breath. "I spent days looking after Ho-oh, looking after him, patrolling the tower, training for the worst. I had to leave the gym in somebody else's hands for a while. Eventually, that man Kanos got the better of me. He tried it once and I was able to stop him, not once - but twice. Then a few days later, he came with a small army of his own, with technology, traps, electrical devices. I couldn't compete," she said with another sigh and an ashamed expression. "That was only two days ago. I think Lugia is related to Ho-oh someway and that Kanos wants him for something bigger than having just one powerful pokémon," she finally finished. "I feel like I let Ho-oh down and more importantly, I'm scared of what Kanos could do with him in his possession.."

"I knew we were sent here for something bigger. I just got the feeling that this was bigger than just saving Chris," I said in realization. "I've been getting what feel like prophetic dreams for so long.. Even before I came face to face with the man, I was hearing his voice. I was dreaming of Kanos.."

"Really.. Something you should be telling me Tom?" Flannery teased. "I think we just worked out why you were so averse to me trying to kiss you.."

"Yeah, you totally suck at kissing," I said, in the driest tone I could manage.

"Hey! That is not true! I have guys queuing up around the block to kiss me," she pleaded.

"You opened up a kissing booth?" I responded as a rebuke.

"Alright, that is it!" she replied, bring her head down so she could push her lips against mine for the third time. This time, she deepened the kiss, it was like she was letting loose all that passion she had kept for me in the time we had been apart. I was just glad that my chest wasn't hurting so much any more so I could reciprocate just like I had wanted to since I had seen her again. She paused for a moment, then looked me eye to eye, brushing her nose against mine tenderly. "I was waiting for that for so long.." she whispered, bringing another quick kiss upon the lips and finally just smiling down on me once again.

"You mean in almost a year you haven't met anyone?" I quizzed, suddenly feeling kind of guilty. Flannery and I had gone steady all the time we were in Hoenn, I didn't ask or want for anybody else whilst I was there but we went our separate ways because we didn't think the long-term thing would ever work. When it didn't, I got real hedonistic when it came to bars and women.

Flannery stopped and stared upwards into the sky as if thinking for a second or two, twirling a strand of her hair around an outstretched finger as she thought for a fleeting moment.

"I met the odd guy who was kind of cute, but he didn't have what you got.. He just didn't have.. It.." she explained.

"What do you mean?" I asked with a sneaking grin on my face. I got a huge ego boost of that comment of hers.

"Hey cheeky.. Stop fishing for compliments," Flannery replied as a teasing response, a grin stretching from each corner of her mouth. She leant in and kissed me tenderly on the lips again, teasing just the tip of her tongue into the kiss. I reciprocated, finally able to bring a hand up to caress her cheek.

"I might have to give you some in a moment," I said in a smiling reply. "The others will be back soon with the firewood. I better see if I can actually move my crippled ass," I suggested in a slightly awkward joking tone, forcing myself to shift onto my backside and sit up to inspect the area.

Amongst the scattered debris and supplies, our pokémon did their own thing. Just like Flannery said, our ever-loving spiky purple shade of gas was trying to discipline the short, sour-faced yellow infantile pokémon that was Elekid. Meanwhile, the three foot tall blue-skinned Marshtomp amused himself happily just splashing along in the water at a lazy pace. I could barely see Abra for how fast he teleported from spot to spot. The yellow psychic minded mouse seemed happy and that was good enough for me. I looked out to the sea again and I could see the three serpentine forms of Gyarados, curving and gliding through the air, diving in and out of the water.

"I think we need to get moving in the morning first thing when it comes to looking for this Lugia. Si explained what happened to Chris and I'll do every thing I can to help you guys. That and Kanos. With two legendary birds under his belt.. there's no telling what he could be capable of.."


End file.
